


A Demon in the Rough 💎

by murderlight



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bleach Brave Souls AU, Demons, Grimmjow is paranoid, Humour, Ichigo is thirsty, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Romance, Spirit Society, and the world just might be falling apart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2020-10-25 06:10:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 60,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20719406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderlight/pseuds/murderlight
Summary: Three years after Ichigo first crossed into the Spirit Society to find a parallel universe full of youkai, the urge to revisit a certain blue-horned demon proves too much to ignore. Armed with a mouthy stuffed lion and a packed bag, he returns to the forbidden bridge that started it all.It was only supposed to be a fun visit. A vacation with a grumpy, lonely version of Grimmjow that Ichigo couldn't get out of his head. Instead, what he finds is a reflection of a past he thought long left behind, and in returning to the autumn land of spirits and demons, he's going to unearth a tragedy and a looming threat that may just destroy everything.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **this fic is based solely off part one of the bleach brave souls 'spirit society' sub story**, and acts as a sequel to the events that occur in it. anything released after it has been totally disregarded. reading it first is very much encouraged! [you can find the entire story here](https://spiritsociety.tumblr.com/post/186042797433/bleach-brave-souls-spirit-society-event-1) (sans the battle scenes) if you need a refresher or would like to see exactly what sparked the fic! and definitely fill your eyes with the character designs of gin, rukia and grimmjow. they're to die for. 👀 
> 
> the gorgeous banner art for this fic comes courtesy of the lovely [@peppertea_](https://twitter.com/peppertea_) so if you like the art, go give her a follow over on twitter and tell her how great she is! ✨

Autumn was a pretty time of year in Karakura.

With summer fading and all its humidity traded for a cooling chill in the air, the town slowly turned red and yellow as leaves shivered and quietly dropped one by one. Festivals were popular that time of year, and while Ichigo usually ended up dragged along to one event or another in the past, he saw a strangely free stretch of days ahead of him that year. Hell, a lot of his days were kinda free lately.

For Ichigo, autumn meant something other than festivals and impromptu get-togethers with his friends. It meant something else to Kon, too, though neither of them had ever really mentioned it again. There was too much uncertainty about what had really happened. But the green-tipped feather Ichigo had found on his shoulder that day said that whatever was out there was real, and that meant their whole mystical journey to another world had been too.

The Spirit Society.

Kon had figured it had to be some kind of mirror world, or parallel universe for spirits. But instead of shinigami and hollows, there had been youkai spirit tribes. Tengu. Kitsune. Oni. No Hueco Mundo. Just a deep dark cave at the base of a mountain, and a version of Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez who’d helped him save Rukia’s life. Who’d handed over one of his coveted magical gems simply because Kon was pissing him off. Who’d agreed to leave his self-imposed exile long before he’d sworn he would, just to help Ichigo get the gem back and fight at his side. Grimmjow, the scrappy brawler at heart, helped him end a conflict before it had even started. The more Ichigo thought about it afterwards the more impossible it seemed, feather or not.

It had been three years since that strange day, and for three years Ichigo hadn’t been able to get a grumpy blue hermit of a demon out of his head. So when the anniversary of their accidental trip rolled around again, Ichigo packed a small, inconspicuous bag of items and told Kon what he was about to do.

“I’m coming! I’m coming with you!” Kon screeched instantly, just like Ichigo knew he would. “I’ve missed my feathery nee-san! Do you think she’ll be happy to see me after I heroically saved her life while you were running around flirting with that smelly loner in the cave? Do you? Ichigo!”

“Sorry, I was tuning you out completely.” Ichigo frowned a little. “Grimmjow didn’t smell bad. Then again you did shove your face in his armpit like a fetishist. Would you have really watched him use the bathroom for eternity? Maybe you should go visit Grimmjow, and I’ll see Rukia. Go get your fix.”

“My only fix is in the soft embrace of a beautiful tengu woman,” Kon said fervently. His vow was completely ruined by his little heart eyes and lion face. “Can I have your body?”

“Fuck no,” Ichigo exclaimed, rattled by the idea. “Last time I turned up to that cave as a shinigami, that demon Grimmjow threw a small boulder at my head. I spent five minutes running around in circuits screaming about how Gin tricked us and stole his gem before he’d even call off those massive spirit hands. He said with my hair and shihakushou I looked like a spooky blackbird.” When Kon stared at him, Ichigo added, “I think he might be scared of birds.”

“What a dick!” Kon cackled, already lifting the flap on Ichigo’s satchel and crawling inside. “Why is there lube in here? Ichigo, you devil!”

“That’s a sports rub, stupid. This is my old gym bag.”

“Uh-huh,” came the muffled reply. “And the hand lotion? And the liquid soap? Why do you have so many products in here?”

“Some of us bathe now and then. I swear every time you give my body back it’s turned into Bear Grylls. Now c’mon; this might not even work but if it does, we’ve only got about two hours to get into the forest and find that forbidden spirit bridge.”

“Don’t spirits open inside,” Kon recited seriously, like Ichigo had any idea what he was talking about. “Hit it, Ichigo. I want feathers in my mouth by sundown.”

With that horrible piece of wishful thinking ringing in Ichigo’s ears, he threw his old black coat with its fur trimmed hood on and patted down his black jeans, making sure he had his wallet and soul phone just in case. The small mirror on the back of his door caught his eye. He really looked almost the same as he had three years ago, except he’d grown a little taller and filled out. A little less rib, a bit more shoulder. No big deal. If that Grimmjow remembered him at all, he’d be recognisable, surely.

Yeah.

No way could freaky blue demon Grimmjow have forgotten him.

“Let’s go.”  


* * *

  
By the time they reached the patch of forest where Keigo’s mystery hunt had been that year, an innocent concern about being remembered had ballooned out into a full-blown internal panic. Ichigo was sweating in the chilly afternoon shade of a dormant sakura as he looked around for the bridge. In his bag, Kon was snoring already.

What was he doing? Ichigo thought. Was he stupid? Trespassing into a spirit world with weird mythical doppelgangers of people he knew in this world—one of which was Ichimaru Gin, so there was probably a horrifying version of Kenpachi out there somewhere—just to see a friendlier incarnation of an arrancar who wanted to kill him? And that wasn’t even the dumbest part; it had been three whole years since then. Anything could happen in three years. The demon Grimmjow might not even be in his cave anymore. Even Ichigo was only still living with his family because he hadn’t saved enough to rent a place yet, and he’d been through countless battles since that first encounter. He’d fought in and helped win the war against the quincies in that time. And that Grimmjow had said he was going to wage a war once he had his power amassed and conquer all of the spirit tribes. Ichigo didn’t know if he was ready to step into another battle just yet.

“I’m getting way ahead of myself,” Ichigo murmured, trying to shut down his flurry of worst case scenario thoughts. “I might not even find the stupid bridge anyway. It could have been a one-off, or that kitsune Gin was the one who opened it that time. Nothing is saying I can even get there.” The words did calm him down, in a disappointing sort of way. Trudging the pressed dirt track and veering off to the right like he remembered doing somewhere around there, Ichigo patted his gym bag for security and took a few random turns through the trees. There had been a few bushes, and almost a veil of red and copper and green leaves falling down around him…

DO NOT CROSS.

Ichigo’s heart lifted. There it was: a slightly warped wooden bridge built over a shallow brook, a sign hung between the posts with frayed string. The words were faded. Under it, in a fresher scrawl punctuated by a rabbit face was a new message that said _‘humans stay out! This means you Ichigo!’_

“Like hell I’m paying attention to a sign with a Chappy face on it,” Ichigo said cheerfully to nobody in particular, jumping over the barrier. He jogged over the arch like it might disappear any moment, a renewed excitement blooming inside. “Spirit Society, here I come.”

The tengu Rukia would probably forgive him for sending Kon to her clan’s estate unescorted and full of lecherous fantasies. Tengu Byakuya…well, they hadn’t officially met.

Kon would be a great introduction to make.

“Wake up Kon. You’ve got feathers to eat, and I have a date with a horny demon.”

The bag exploded with muffled laughter. “Don’t you mean horned?”

Ichigo shrugged unseen. “Potato, tomato. I’ll pick you up when I’m ready to leave. Don’t get murdered, okay?”

“Who would murder me? I look like an adorable servant, just like Rukia said last time.”

“Adorable?”

“March, slave.” Some more rustling from the bag until Kon stuck his face out. “Are you sure you don’t want to give me your body? I’ll make better use of it than you will!”

Thinking of a plush blue-black fur pelt, an array of gleaming jewellery and curved horns like two glossy blue handles, Ichigo scratched his cheek and swallowed a little.

“No, I think we’re good. You’ll fit in better if other spirits think you’re a familiar like Rukia did, anyway.”

Kon gave him a lingering, suspicious kind of look at that but mercifully didn’t say anything. Ichigo didn’t have any plans or ideas, after all. Just three years of wondering what would happen if he’d had more than two brief encounters with that demon Grimmjow, the one who’d complimented a human’s fighting ability and who’d lost all his aggression the moment Ichigo said he wasn’t there to start a war. The one who’d listened to him speak and left his gems unprotected while he followed Ichigo out into the light, furious that the gift he’d passed to him had been stolen.

Ichigo knew and accepted Grimmjow the arrancar. His goals and values were understandable and a product of his survival instinct as a predator in Hueco Mundo. But Grimmjow the demon—why was he different in almost every way? Nicer, easier, more honest, less angry? Was it Ichigo’s human element when they met? Or simply a lack of the centuries-old enmity between shinigami and hollows in a world that didn’t have any? All the questions were going to drive him nuts if he didn’t get to that cave and find him.

For the hundredth time, Ichigo hoped he was home.  


* * *

  
Grimmjow wasn’t home.

“Fuck,” Ichigo said with heartfelt dismay, looking around the enormous cavern like there might be some blue fur hiding in the shadows somewhere. It was definitely the same creepy cave mouth as last time. High stone above, smooth stone and clay below, with a fissure running through the back quarter of the cavern where a fresh spring was emitting a faint crystalline gurgle. Unlike last time, there were no multicoloured gems in the water. No gems, probably no Grimmjow either. Maybe he’d gone to find another spring to soak them in. Hadn’t he said something about charging them up? Maybe each spring could run flat, or something.

Maybe Grimmjow had moved on long ago. He could be anywhere. Absolutely anywhere.

Disappointed, Ichigo slouched his bag to the stone and wandered deeper into the cave. At least he’d have shelter for the night, if nothing else. Maybe he left a note saying where he’d gone? Yeah right. Exhaling a sigh, he pulled a small travel flashlight out of his coat pocket and switched it on. The main interior of the cavern was gloomy but well-lit, but the vein-like passages that forked off from it were probably pitch black. Breathing in the scent of fresh water and damp earth, he moved further into the underground cave system.

It was a long, twisty labyrinth down there, and it reminded him of the underground forest of menos in Hueco Mundo. Long passages that forked and split and curved into an incomprehensible network of tunnels. It felt like the inverted root system of a massive, ancient tree. Ichigo spent an hour wandering down an arterial passageway before the shine of something deep at the end of a side tunnel caught his eye. A blue glow, so faint he wouldn’t have seen it with the flashlight pointed in its direction. Figuring the path was straight enough, Ichigo bit his lip and switched off the light. With his hands out to grip the smooth walls of the cave, he followed it all the way down.

Blue could mean Grimmjow, his giant spirit hands, or gems, or…well, anything. But in a dark cave light usually also meant life, and that was good enough for him. Moving with the short, clumsy steps of the inexperienced, Ichigo walked until the faint blue became brighter, and even brighter, until—

“Whoa,” Ichigo breathed as the passage opened into another cavern, this one with its own star-littered night sky of a thousand glow worms clinging to the stone ceiling, trailing crystalline strings that captured the light from their bodies. The entire place was lit blue and white from above, artificial constellations arcing between the stone stalactites. It was the prettiest thing Ichigo had ever seen. “What are you guys all doing down here? Looking for bugs?”

“The bugs come to them,” said a low voice from behind him.

Ichigo went rigid, his entire chest turning to stone. Something soft brushed his shoulder, and an arm that glowed with slashes of blue pointed up at the stone ceiling with a clawed finger. “See the strings coming off ‘em? It’s mucous. They catch things like a spider catches flies in its web. They never leave this cavern because it’s warm from the spring at the other end.” Hands grabbed his shoulders so tightly claws pricked through the sturdy fabric of his coat. “So what’s a human doing this deep in my caves? If it’s a meal you want to become, you’re outta luck. I don’t eat chicken.”

“I’m not a chic—hey!” Ichigo spun around and glared up at the face tipped down to his. “You don’t recognise me? It’s me! Ichigo! Kurosaki Ichigo!” Had he even introduced himself last time? Maybe not. Worse, he couldn’t even hold onto his annoyance, which was more for appearances than anything else. The demon Grimmjow was still there, still failing at being menacing with his furry shoulder pelt and mismatched arms, his long feather earrings dancing across the bare skin of his chest. The slanted feline eyes narrowed down at him reflected only the ghostly blue of the wormlight, making them look like stars were dancing inside. Ugh, god. He really had it bad.

Grimmjow’s mouth tucked down for an instant. “I don’t know that name, but I know this smell. I gave you one of my gems and you lost it.”

“That’s not what happened and you know it,” Ichigo protested, but Grimmjow was suddenly twitchy, looking around the cavern floor and walls. The light made his demonic face markings look black in the strange glow of the cave.

“Is that creepy little bear here too?”

“No, I left Kon at the Kuchi—uh, the tengu estate. He wanted to visit Rukia.”

“Rukia,” Grimmjow repeated, like the name left a bad taste in his mouth. “Red horn, green shoulder plumes, big scowl? She keeps leaving fruit baskets on the edge of the boundary. They’re probably poisoned so I keep tipping them in the maggot trench. I’m not falling for any bird bullshit.”

“Maggot trench?” Ichigo repeated, feeling a strange sense of collapsing dreams fall upon him. Even the blue glow of the cavern couldn’t really save that moment. “Rukia was probably just trying to show thanks after you saved her from Gin.”

“Like I’d fall for that!” Grimmjow actually sounded offended. “Come on, human, I’ll kick you out the right way this time but if you come back, you’re goin’ in the maggot trench too. Wandering asshole.”

“I’m not a—” Any protest was stopped dead as two hands—not Grimmjow’s, but two massive glowing blue spirit hands—flew in and grabbed him up like a small bird, caging him in their fingers. Then he was whisked out of the worm cave and through the twisting passages, back to the main cavern and dropped hard on the rocks next to his bag. “Ow! Dicks.” Raising both hands from his crouch, Ichigo flipped off the jazz hands from hell. Amazingly, they flipped him off right back. “Oh hey, cool.”

He was miming the fuck signal with thumb and forefinger pinched in a circle, a sole finger pointing through it in a penetrating movement when the self-proclaimed demon king of Spirit Society swaggered in with arms crossed, accessories jangling with each step. In the harsher light of the cave mouth Ichigo waited to be disappointed by the lack of ethereal glow. It didn’t really come.

Demon Grimmjow still looked every bit as amazing and feral as he had the first time. Personality differences aside, this Grimmjow had some kind of tribal style that didn’t look faked or awkward despite layers of toothed necklaces and billowing trousers that bore dangling beaded braids and engraved plate armour. His armlet was pure metal made soft and shining with use, his feathered earrings clearly coming from something that had once been alive and probably powerful.

But it was Grimmjow’s face that really struck home for Ichigo. The same eyes, the same mouth and hair, hell, even the same green estigma winging out from the corners under his eyes. But it wasn’t the Grimmjow from his world. Under the vivid blue streaks of colour across his face, the gloss of his horns with their gold rings pressed down around their base, there was something strangely different in the set of his jaw and the expressions he made. Something new. It was the same thing that had pulled Ichigo in the first time, trying to explain that he needed a favour, not a fight. And this Grimmjow had listened.

But it had been three years, and a human was just a human to a demon like him.

Well, screw that. Ichigo wasn’t just any damn human, and he’d spent three years imagining the entire reunion. Reaching over to grab his bag, he lifted it and gave his best stern look. It had mostly worked on Yhwach, after all.

“I’m staying here for a few days,” he told Grimmjow firmly, and slung the entire bag at him with more force than was necessary. He caught it instinctively, whuffing out a surprised breath as it hit him in the midsection. “Hope you have a spare bed.”

“I don’t have any beds,” Grimmjow replied, looking down at the bag in his arms. “Why the hell do you want to stay here? Piss off the tengu? Fox got your tail? If it’s the dragon tribe, you can walk outside my territory and die for all I—”

“I just came to see you again.” Honesty and humiliation in all things, right? “I never got to say thanks for giving me that gem. Did you end up getting it back from Gin?”

The worn vinyl of the gym bag popped a little as pinprick claws sank through it one by one. Above the demonstration of casual destruction, Grimmjow was staring at him with wide eyes. Behind him, the giant hands were mindlessly miming the finger in the hole signal. Ichigo tried not to look at it. Tried not to look at anything, really.

“That was three years ago in human time,” Grimmjow said slowly, practically hugging the bag at that point. “Why are you still thinking about it?”

“Because I didn’t get to thank you,” Ichigo repeated, nonplussed. “And I guess…I wanted to…spend more time with you?” Oh god, vinegar. Vinegar and glass in his mouth. Being honest was for chumps, and demon Grimmjow was going to make him pay, and pay—

“Oh,” Grimmjow said, and threw the bag back at him. “All right. If it’s just you and not any tribe stuff, you can stay.” When Ichigo’s jaw dropped, he added crossly, “But if you try to steal any of my gems, I’m going to—”

“Throw me in the maggot trench, I know. I don’t need any gems. After all our effort last time, all we really needed was Rukia to blow us back to our world with her fan. How did she not know that?”

“Bird brains are small. Real small.” Grimmjow spotted the hands behind him finally and waved his arms through them, where they dispersed like smoke. “One time, I beat down some silver real thin and crumpled it around a pine cone. Threw it into the tengu compound and the snotty one with the feather braids came out and batted it around for like half an hour before anyone saw.” Ichigo had a horrible, delighted instinct that he was talking about Byakuya. Grimmjow just shrugged a little. “They’re dumbasses. Pretty, but kinda stupid when there’s something shiny around. I leave them alone. The others are where the trouble lies. Avoid them if you want to keep your soul, human.”

“My name is Ichigo. I-chi-go. Or Kurosaki, if you’re feeling distant and weird.” Silently, he really hoped this Grimmjow didn’t take him up on it. Too many similarities as things already stood. “So the gem, did you get it?”

Instead of answering, Grimmjow just turned on his strapped heel and strode back toward the inner passageway again. Confused by the abrupt departure, Ichigo dropped his bag on the stone and hurried to follow him. He’d better not be heading for the maggot trench. It sounded squirmy and traumatising.

Too proud to turn his pocket flashlight on again, Ichigo staggered and tripped his way after Grimmjow for a full minute until he gave up and grabbed a handful of the fur pelt that hung over Grimmjow’s shoulder. It had the unintended side effect of sending his guide rigid with surprise. Ichigo’s face smashed into the warm skin of his nape before he could stop.

“What?” Ichigo said defensively. “I can’t see a thing. What’s this fur anyway? Do you just grow it out of your shoulder like this? Do all demons have one?”

“Fuck, you ask a lot of questions,” Grimmjow said irritably. In the near-blackness Ichigo felt him raise his arms up. In an instant the entire passage had lit a brilliant, flickering blue as the disembodied hands returned, ghostly fire burning at their wrists. They hovered just behind and above them like a moving umbrella of light. Ichigo gaped up at them before he could play it cool, but Grimmjow wasn’t even looking. Instead he plucked at the fur and lifted it slightly. Underneath, a leather belt-like buckle was stitched into the hide. “The fur’s strapped onto my shoulder. It’s a clan thing. Every demon clan leader has one. Now c’mon, pick your feet up before I carry you.”

“You can carry me,” Ichigo offered agreeably. Grimmjow cut him a confused glance over his shoulder, a single visible horn gleaming in the blue firelight. “If it’s faster. Hey, are these hands controlled by you? Are they your hands? What’s with the teeth on your necklaces? And how come you have razor teeth sometimes and just little fangy teeth now? Can you transform into a giant oni or—”

A clawed hand clapped over Ichigo’s mouth, its palm slightly calloused against his lips. Giving him no opportunity to get free, another hand grabbed the base of his skull. Grimmjow looked ready to kill him if he said another word.

“Are you some kind of human spy? The hell is with all the questions?”

“Moh,” Ichigo managed to muffle out. The hand over his mouth was jet black and had jagged stripes of glowing blue that travelled all the way up his arm and under the fur. Why was it black? Was the blue some kind of demon warning stripe, like how poisonous frogs were brightly coloured? Was Grimmjow poisonous? Reaching up, he pulled the hand away from his mouth a little and turned his head aside. “You’re just…the first demon I’ve met, I guess, and you’re all blinged out and there’s horns and stuff.” Inspired suddenly, Ichigo added, “I have a horn, sometimes.”

Grimmjow looked offended. “I don’t need to know about your horn. Are all humans perverts?”

“Perverts?” Ichigo repeated, right before his face flamed red. “No, not—I mean a real horn, not my dick! You’re the creep here for thinking about it. Stop touching my mouth with your fuzzy paw.” He swiped at it, but Grimmjow yanked away with a deep glower of displeasure. Instead of kicking him out like Ichigo halfway expected, he just stomped away, presumably to whatever destination he had in mind.

“S’not fuzzy,” Grimmjow muttered, rubbing at his hand. “It’s _soft._" Ichigo snorted a little, right up until a giant claw pricked him on the asscheek and sent him jogging to catch up.

They walked in silence for a while, this time heading past the passage with the glow worms and down to the right somewhere. Ichigo felt an oppressive kind of silent weight in the stone above him as they went further down into the earth. He wasn’t claustrophobic really, but the passage was getting narrower and it lifted the hair on the back of his neck. Just as Ichigo was starting to freak out at the sound of his own breathing and footsteps echoing off the cold stone walls, Grimmjow started to speak.

“Hands is a clan spirit. Legend’s supposed to go that the origin of our bloodline was a blue oni so powerful he could knock down castles with a single swing of his sword. He was a mean bastard, and pissed everyone off from what the cave paintings tell. The great tribes all banded together and tricked the oni into drinking barrels of drugged wine. While he slept, they tied him down and tried to cut him into joints.” Grimmjow let out a snort. “They only got his hands off before he woke up, but his blood poured out and soaked into the mud, making a new race of demons. That’s how they say my clan was born. Hands here, it’s either the real oni’s spirit or just something tied to my blood. It fights with me when I need it to. Most of the time it just floats around grabbing things it likes.”

“Ghost oni hands,” Ichigo said in fascination. “It sounds like one of those creation myths from ancient times. Blood and dirt growing into demons. So its name is just Hands?” Ahead of him, Grimmjow’s shoulders lifted in a shrug.

“What else you want me to call it? It’s a couple of hands. Don’t get so sentimental, human.”

“Never mind.” Thinking hard on the story, Ichigo was struck by a sudden thought. “So Hands just attached itself to whoever the king is now? How does it know?”

Silence.

“It just does.” There was an empty sound to those words. “Come on, we’re almost there. You’re properly lost now, right?”

“Definitely. Plus your oni hands keep touching my butt so I’m too scared to look back the way we came. Is it hitting on me?”

“Be flattered. Hands usually rips the limbs off things as annoying as you.”

“Hands didn’t hurt Kon.”

“That thing was cursed. Creepy little bears shouldn’t be touched.”

Ichigo smiled. “Birds, stuffed toys, skin contact; for a big tough demon you sure are scared of a lot.”

“You wanna die? Because this is how you express a death wish.”

And there it was. For all this Grimmjow’s grumpiness and hermit loner vibe, he wasn’t violent beyond the necessary motions to protect his territory. Hell, even Ichigo wanted to kill Kon sometimes, but Grimmjow hadn’t raised even a claw in his direction. Maybe Kon was just too small to be worthy. Maybe that’s what Grimmjow thought of Ichigo, too. Well. That wasn’t anything new—he was used to being underestimated.

Feeling a giant fingertip rub the top of his head lightly, Ichigo halfheartedly swatted it, then just grabbed onto one dark claw-tip and held on. At least someone liked him.

“In my world, there’s a guy named Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. He looks just like you, but he’s not a demon. He’s something we call a hollow. An arrancar, actually. It’s how I knew your name when we first met.” When Grimmjow did nothing except shrug a little and straighten his pelt, Ichigo frowned. “Doesn’t that blow your mind? There’s another world out there with another you, another Rukia and Gin and you’re all these totally different people living different lives.”

Grimmjow stopped, but it was only to feel the side of a new passageway. Nodding to himself, he started in, grabbing Ichigo’s wrist to drag him in too. Frustrated by his lack of response, Ichigo almost snatched his hand back. Did nothing interest him?

“In here, down the end. Feel the steam?”

“Steam? No,” Ichigo said in annoyance. He absolutely wasn’t sulking. “Just the same freezing mould dungeon we’ve been crawling through for the last lifetime. Why would I feel steam?”

“Dumbass.” Grabbing his shoulders in a mismatched grip, Grimmjow hauled him around and in front. “Now?” He pushed Ichigo forward into a trot, barely letting him keep his balance. Seeing strange lights up ahead, Ichigo followed the passage to the end and gaped at the sight that stretched before him.

It was another cavern, sure. Wide and high with stone stalactites stabbing downward like knives, it could be like any other pocket in the underground maze—except for the pool.

In the centre of the entire natural room, fed from a gushing crack in the stone wall was a hot spring the size of a small lake. Wisps of white steam curled from it, but that wasn’t the amazing part. It was the colours that poured out of it like someone had filled it with liquid rainbow, lit from beneath by something magical and strange. Ichigo didn’t think of himself as particularly poetic, but the only word he could think to use for that vision was breathtaking.

“What the hell,” Ichigo whispered, slipping away from Grimmjow, his eyes full of the brilliance in the pool. The whole cavern was gleaming in jewel hues of purple and blue and red and yellow—every colour, shifting and glimmering with the reflection of water shifting over the stone, picking out the metallic veins of ore in the walls. Ichigo felt like he was standing inside a geode. The place was simply amazing. “This is insane. Is it the fountain of youth or something?” He stepped forward, itching to have a look inside the water, but a pair of forearms swung down on his chest like safety bars, pinning him back to a naked torso that was half obscured by plush fur. Ooh. A jaw mask bumped his cheek for a moment, until Grimmjow switched to the other shoulder.

“This,” Grimmjow said proudly, “is what a fully charged clutch of gems looks like. Hot spring water’s the final stage before they’re all ready to use. Five hundred, easy, and each one strong enough to kill a spirit. Fire, ice, water, lightning, earth, air and death.” He rubbed his blue-marked cheek against Ichigo’s, utterly heedless of the dismay on his face. “See, it’s not about the claws, or Hands, or how good I can gut a stupid fox. Demons are feared because we’re the only race who can make _these_. I’m gonna remind ‘em all of just who’s predator and who’s prey in this place.”

Ichigo felt sick. All that beauty, all that glittering radiance soaking the air and painting the walls…and it was for war. An arsenal of magical gemstones that could level the Spirit Society, splintering the peaceful world and throwing all the tribes into disarray. Into a bloodbath. The same thing Gin had been trying to cause when he stole the gem in the first place.

Unless this had been his real plan. Not to take one measly little gem away, but to incense Grimmjow into stepping up his plans a thousandfold. And anything Ichimaru Gin did, there was a darker plot overarching it all.

Swallowing, dreading the answer but knowing he had to ask, Ichigo reached up to grab one of the arms bracing him and said, “Is there someone named Aizen in this place?”

Claws sank into his coat, the world whirling into white as Ichigo was hauled around and slammed face-first into the cave wall so hard the breath was pushed out of his chest. Pain detonated in his forehead like a bomb. Gasping, heaving ineffectual gulps of air, Ichigo blinked off the glittering light of a possible concussion. The world reverberated as enormous blue hands crashed into the stone on either side of him, menacingly close.

Breath touched his ear, hot and feral. Ichigo could feel blood spill down his hairline.

“How,” Grimmjow seethed in a voice of deadly, almost gentle quiet, “do you know that name?”

Even dazed and knowing as much as he did, Ichigo was bordering on panic. He was in the wrong body to be making a demon angry.

“I told you, there’s another world where—”

“You really think I’m stupid enough to swallow that bullshit? You come in here, into my territory, and the first thing you ask about is the gems?” On either side, the blue hands were dragging trenches through the stone with their claws. Ichigo’s stomach turned to water. “Bet you thought you were real smart, coming back acting like a friend. You, Gin, that fucking bird bitch, you were all in on it, weren’t you? Aizen could never’ve done it alone.”

“Done what?” Ichigo gasped, tasting his own blood in his mouth. It was running over his face from where Grimmjow was grinding him into the stone. “I’m not working with anyone!”

“Not anymore you’re not.” Mercifully, Grimmjow yanked him around to face him. Ichigo touched his face and felt a gash on the edge of his hairline, just above his right eyebrow. Blinking up through his blood, Ichigo tried again to think of something that resembled proof.

“I promise you, I’m not a spy for Aizen! You already know I’m from another world. My name is Kurosaki Ichigo, and I’m a shinigami substitute.” He wracked his brains for any detail that might count but came up empty. Was he honestly going to die like this? “I’m just a human who came back to see you.”

“No, you’re dead.” His voice was indistinguishable from his other self; full of fury and crackling hate. “Spit out your last words, and be grateful I’m lettin’ you die on hallowed fuckin’ ground.”

There were no options that he could think of. Nothing he knew that could get through to this demon tribe nutcase, not without making him think he really was a—a spy. For Aizen. What the actual fucking fuck? Well, when out of options…

“Someday we’ll laugh about this,” Ichigo told him, and watched Grimmjow’s eyes narrow in confusion. Right up until he kicked him square in the nuts, anyway.

It had the intended effect; pain briefly eclipsed the rage on Grimmjow’s blue-marked face, reeling him backwards a couple of steps, his feather earrings swinging. Hands just straight-up vanished in a puff of smoke. But most importantly, Grimmjow’s clawed grip weakened. Staggering as the room tilted and split in two directions, Ichigo bolted for the passage mouth and prayed he remembered even vaguely which way he had to go. His shinigami badge was in his bag at the large cavern entrance. If he could get to that before Grimmjow gutted him, he might stand a chance. Might. He’d taken a massive knock to the head. But if he could get away from Grimmjow then Ichigo didn’t honestly care where the passages took him. That had been a killing rage, he was sure of it. So much for the lonely hermit demon who wouldn’t harm a human.

Passages split into tunnels into openings barely wide enough for him to comfortably walk through, branching and twisting and curving around. Ichigo lost his way on the fifth new fork and kept going, the shaking bob of the yellow flashlight glow the only thing lighting his way. Further down behind him, something roared like a hellhound denied its meal and Ichigo was horrified to imagine it was Grimmjow. Maybe he could turn into an oni after all. God, his head hurt. Even the adrenaline wasn’t enough to cloud the hot throb of what was turning into a huge bleeding lump on his head.

How had he gotten it so wrong? Demon or arrancar, Grimmjow was a psychopathic savage with no heart at all—

Skidding hard as the passage opened up into a huge arena-like void, Ichigo barely stopped himself from plunging off the edge of the rock and into a bowl-shaped nightmare of gleaming, odd-shaped pieces of white stone. Panting hard, wiping the sticky mess of his eye clean with the back of his hand, Ichigo stared down into the darkness, where the light travelled over the bottom of the drop. It took him almost a full moment of consideration to realise he wasn’t staring at stones or rocks at all.

It was bones.

Whole skeletons gleamed ivory and clean, scattered in vaguely humanoid shapes all across the cavern. They seemed to have just been dropped there and never touched or moved to be still so perfectly posed. An arm crooked, a leg bent, two smallish looking skeletons draped at waist and chest in rotting cloth were still clinging to each other. It looked like a cross between the photos of Pompeii that Ichigo had studied in his Ancient History classes and a mass grave. What had killed them all so neatly? Who were they all? Grimmjow couldn’t have done it. Even Hands would have crushed them to pieces. They couldn’t have caused this sleeping, untouched tableau of death.

Casting the light across each of the nearest bodies in sorrowful defeat, Ichigo was swinging his attention to a possible new exit when he saw it. A familiar shape of white with overlarge eye-sockets and two curling horns. Ram-like, with a crack through the centre of the skull. Except it wasn’t a skull, because it sat atop one.

“Nel,” Ichigo whispered, and his knees hit the stone. His eyes were stinging in a way that had nothing to do with blood. “Oh my god, it’s Nel. They’re demons. They’re all demons.” The idea of throwing up soured the back of his throat and sent saliva rushing into his mouth, but he didn’t have enough presence of self to even bother. He could see them now: the shapes giving way to people he’d known. Knew. Or strangers, really. A long, centipede-like creature the size of a train. The two small bodies, one with long pigtails like dust trailing behind her. An adult skeleton wearing a wolf’s jaw like a necklace, a tiny child’s bones buried inside arms that had been snapped in half.

The arrancar of this world were demons, and they were all dead.

But Nel. She’d been so strong, so brave and noble and goofy and always so happy to see him—

Dead. Dead like Bawabawa, like Starrk, like his little green-haired girl. Ichigo didn’t want to look any closer. He didn’t want to see who else was in there. Any of them. All of them. He was still staring into the darkness, dimming yellow light dancing over their bones when the passage he’d come from lit blue-white and blazing. He didn’t need to hear the footstep to know Grimmjow had found him.

“Who killed her,” Ichigo asked, so dully it barely sounded like a question to his own ears. “Who killed Nel?”

“Who do you think?” Grimmjow said coldly. “Nelliel, Shawlong, Starrk, Harribel, even the fucking dog, slaughtered when the clans refused to give over power. Big event here, some hundred years ago. All the demon clans called to order. All in one place. Didn’t Aizen tell you the big story of his triumph? How’d he sell it to you and still leave this out?”

“Who. Killed. Nel.” Ichigo barely recognised his own voice. One joint bending at a time, he pushed himself to his feet. “Was it Aizen himself? Tousen? Gin? Or was it Nnoitra, finally getting what he wanted? _Who killed my friend?!_"

“Gin? Tousen?” Grimmjow said, startled off guard so badly that Ichigo was able to get a fist in the leather strap of his pelt and yank their faces together. Blue eyes like brushed metal stared down at him in the spiritual fire. “Why are you crying? You…” Several emotions flickered across his face in tumbling succession, and none of them were anger. After a moment, his hackles slowly went down. “I don’t know who killed her. I wasn’t here.” There was something young in his voice. Carefully, he started tugging Ichigo’s hand out of the fist it was locked in. “It was supposed to be a demonic conclave. Hundred years ago. More. Everyone to meet and vote and talk it out. All the demon clan leaders, all their people. The ryuujin wanted to add us as an adjunct of the dragon tribe. Blood’s not that different, he said. Dragons make different gems, and only one in ten lifetimes, but they said it was something special. Then he said he needed all of ours to power his own, and in return we wouldn’t be shunned by the Spirit Society anymore.” Grimmjow stared down into the pit. “They said no thanks.”

“Aizen is the leader of the dragon tribe,” Ichigo said slowly, unsure. “The…ryuujin?” Grimmjow just nodded in the blue firelight. Snorting back his running nose, Ichigo wiped his eyes roughly. “He’s the leader of the dragon tribe and he wanted you all to join him, but he killed everyone when they said no. Where were you?”

“It’s not like I ran,” Grimmjow said instantly, his jaw jumping on a sudden clench of teeth. “I was gone long before everything went wrong. I don’t trust anything that’s not a demon. We’re honest, there’s no bullshit with us. It’s the nobility and the other tribes that talk about peace and then kill each other behind closed doors. I didn’t want us to be like them, so I told Shawlong to get fucked, he could represent the clan if he wanted to be included so badly.” Shoving Ichigo away, Grimmjow kicked a pebble into the pit. The clatter of its landing said it found someone’s bones. “Why are you asking, human? How do you know Nelliel? Gonna feed me more shit about this other world you’re from?”

“I’m twenty years old, and she died a hundred years ago,” Ichigo said fiercely. “I couldn’t possibly know she had green hair and hazel eyes, or that the sheep skull mask over there used to sit on her head. There’s definitely no way I could know that Nnoitra hated her strength, or that she had some—some really weird friends that followed her around and called themselves her brothers. Aizen wouldn’t have cared about any of this. About her. Not your Aizen, and not the one from my world. I’m not his spy, Grimmjow. I’m the one who helped take him down in my world.” When Grimmjow’s head jerked around, necklaces jangling, Ichigo swallowed. “I’m the one who’s going to help you take him down in the Spirit Society. Now, before he creates his jewel. We’re going to avenge your demon tribe and we’re going to do it without waging war on everything in sight. But I can’t do it unless you let me help. And that means trusting me.” Ichigo held out his hand.

Grimmjow stared at his face for a long, uncomprehending moment. “You want to help me.”

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t want me to take revenge on the other tribes for looking the other way.”

“That’s right.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No!” Grimmjow said with emphasis. “I don’t know you, I barely knew Nelliel, and everything I just told you came from Shawlong’s mouth before he drowned in his own blood and died. I sure as hell can’t let you live knowing you’ve seen the gems. I’ve got no fucking proof it was Aizen, dickhead. You can’t help me any more than _I_ can help me. Demons aren’t listened to by the other tribes. To them we’re just dirty, savage, meat-eating, soul-stealing monsters. The territory protections? They’re just to keep me in as much as they’re to keep everything else out. Aizen doesn’t think I have a single fucking gem to my name—”

“Gin knows,” Ichigo said in a rush, willing him to understand. “He knows you can make them because you gave one to me three years ago, and he works for Aizen.” He paused. “Sort of. It’s complicated. But I’d stake my life on Aizen knowing everything Gin does at this point. There’s too many similarities between this world and mine to ignore.” All he needed next was some kind of spirit Inoue to turn up with the ability to reverse events and they’d be well and truly screwed. “Please, Grimmjow. I didn’t pick up on any of this last time I was here. I missed it, even though it was right in front of my stupid face. Let me help now, before any more lives are lost.”

Grimmjow’s lip curled. “You think I care at this point who dies? The other youkai tribes can rot. They didn’t lift a damn claw—”

“Not them,” Ichigo said fiercely. He blinked. “Well, them too. But mostly you, because you’re in the most danger. You’re still valuable while your gems are hidden away and nobody knows they’re one-hundred percent charged or whatever. Technically I don’t know where they are any more than Gin or Aizen or anybody, because I seriously hate this shithole mountain you’re living under and I have no sense of direction here. How can I spy on you when I can’t find anything? I’m on your side. I swear it. I know you don’t really know me but I swear it to you, Grimmjow.”

There was no blood pact or spit-shake that could make him believe it and Ichigo knew it well. He was firmly in the category of Just a Human; just something small and loud when all this devastation had happened a century ago. He knew he was picking open not just a scab but an entire scar, peeling back the shining tissue of the surface and digging inside with a careless hand. But it had been Nel. This world’s Nel. She hadn’t been an arrancar made by Aizen, but part of a race alone. Slaughtered for being too proud to give into his stupid syrupy lies and talk about destiny and plans. The same thing that would have happened to them in Ichigo’s world, if they’d said no instead of yes. Fuck that parallel universe shit. All that was left was Grimmjow, and if it meant Mugetsu had to be used twice to save the entire place then Ichigo was prepared to do his part.

Soul Society, Spirit Society, the arrancar and the demons, it didn’t matter what they called themselves. Aizen was still a guiding hand of events and he didn’t have his hougyoku yet. There was still time to stop everything before it began.

Grimmjow stared at Ichigo in a long, guarded silence. Behind him, Hands was flared open like bat wings in cold fire, probably ready to crush him like a doll if his judgement went badly. It occurred to Ichigo not for the first time that maybe he really should have given his body to Kon. Well, he’d done and said everything he could for someone with an open head wound and a demon with ghost hands threatening to kill him over a mass grave. If Grimmjow attacked, maybe he could dart for a new tunnel, or push him into the pit. It didn’t seem that likely but Ichigo wasn’t going to go down peacefully.

“Your head is pissing blood,” Grimmjow said finally, his eyes sliding away like he didn’t care one way or the other. “For all I know you’re just rambling because I knocked your brains loose. Hands, take him back to the hot spring. I’ll take care of this.”

Ichigo stiffened. “No, wait—” But there was no waiting as giant hands engulfed him and the rollercoaster from hell began once more, hauling him through tunnels and around corners like they were on badly-maintained rails, finally throwing him down on the edge of the rainbow spring he’d bolted from. So, he was going to die after all. What a shitty way to go. He hoped Kon was adopted by the tengu clan if he couldn’t make it back home.

Hands was guarding the passageway, so Ichigo just crawled over to the proper edge of the water and finally looked in. It looked like the inside of one of those fake treasure chests people like to put in elaborate fish tanks: hundreds of golf ball-sized jewels in different shades of vibrant colour, each one absolutely pouring light from the bottom of the spring. The mixture created that swimming pool radiance of shifting light and webbed lines across the ceiling and walls of the cave. It was beautiful, but it was probably going to kill him. A gem for every element and one for death itself, hadn’t Grimmjow said?

Ichigo was still staring morosely into it, watching occasional small drips of his own blood hit the water and filter away in tacky strings when Grimmjow strode in. He was taking off one of his necklaces as he approached, the one with the round black stone at the centre.

“Nothing to say?” Grimmjow asked, shoving the necklace over Ichigo’s head and pushing it under his coat and shirt. “Thought you’d have thirty new questions by now.” Unexpectedly nimble fingers started working the toggle fastenings on his coat, parting them all the way down until he could pull it back off Ichigo’s shoulders by the hood. He threw it at the wall, where a white t-shirt soon followed. Ichigo’s new main concern was the pain of his head when knuckles grazed his wound. When his boots were pulled off as well it suddenly occurred that Grimmjow was taking off all his clothes.

“I can dress myself,” Ichigo blurted out backwards, trying to shove clawed hands away from his fly. “Why are you killing me naked?”

“I’m not killing you,” Grimmjow replied, grabbing his waistband and eyeing the snap with some interest. “What is this button? Metal buttons?” Pulling it apart with care, he shoved his face right up close to the reinforced stitching of the buttonhole. His eyes lit up when he spotted the zipper. At that point Ichigo couldn’t stay alert for proceedings and flopped back on the side of the spring. Everything had gone sideways. Nel was dead. How could Nel be dead? She was an unkillable masochistic amazon with a lance. She was like…a knight, but in skimpy clothes. She was like a sister. A little one, but sometimes a big one too. God, his head was throbbing. And his ass was officially cold.

“Ow,” Ichigo said as his jeans were peeled off his legs, even though it didn’t really hurt. It was just the only protest he could think to make. “Stop dressing me. Un. Undressing me.”

“Fine,” said Grimmjow, who was waving black underwear at him like a flag. “You’re naked anyway. Do all humans look like this? Orange?” Fingers twirled in his pubic hair, tugging on it. There was something really wrong with that, but Ichigo wasn’t sure exactly what it was until two fingertips pressed his nipples like doorbells. “Haven’t seen a naked human in a long time. You seem cleaner than the last one.”

“Gross,” Ichigo said, squinting his blood-sticky eye. The rainbow stone ceiling was whirling. “I think you scrambled my brains, Grimmjow. I’m too human to take a hit like this and not come out backwards. Or inside out. Can you see my brains?”

Grimmjow wasn’t immediately available, instead making a lot of rustling noises and gesticulations in the corner of his vision. Rolling his head took some effort and pain, but by the time Ichigo was able to focus again he could see Grimmjow dropping his billowing blue patterned pants onto his unbuckled fur and leg straps, along with his metal plates and a teal…thing, and a thick rope-like belt that Ichigo had seen in a lot of historical illustrations. He left on the metal arm band and his other necklace, plus the earrings and golden horn rings. Wearing nothing but those, his markings and a lot of smooth pale skin, he returned to bundle Ichigo’s seemingly-seventy limbs into his arms and haul him up into the air.

“Okay when I had this in mind I wasn’t free-bleeding from the head,” Ichigo disclosed officially, trying to unstick his eyelashes from each other so he could get a better look. Grimmjow frowned down at him, trying to navigate something and glare at him at the same time.

“You said you didn’t know anything about the hot spring.”

“I fantasise on the go?”

“About what?”

“What?”

“What are you fantasising about?”

“Who is?”

Grimmjow glowered. The vivid blue that streaked down from his horns, through his eyelids and down his cheeks looked like it had been painted on with a calligraphy brush, curving around and out with two flecks below the base like accents. Or like a fisherman’s hook with two water ripples beneath it. Or like…like…

Hot water touched his ass, almost too hot to stand. Grimmjow was putting them into the magic rainbow spring. Together. With the demon gems. Ichigo barely had the presence of mind to reflexively suck in a breath and then they were plunging down, limbs caught up together as he swung around in the buoyant water. Yelping at the shock of being shoved into a fucking boiling pool of death Ichigo tried to claw his way to freedom, which also involved jamming his thumb in Grimmjow’s metal cuffed ear and fighting his way free. Or maybe it would have, if he wasn’t as weak as a kitten by comparison. Grimmjow just looked at him in puzzlement.

“The spring isn’t that hot. Wait it out for a minute while the gem wakes up.”

“The death gem?” Ichigo said through clenched teeth, willing his dick not to boil and split in half like a sausage. Maybe the water wasn’t hot for a demon, but he had the soft skin of a stupid moron who thought he could just arrive for a sleepover with a horror movie dropout. Maybe this was exactly what he deserved. Against him, Grimmjow just shifted his arms and lowered him onto a rocky shelf that could act as a bench. Then he let go.

“It’s a healing gem. I never made any of ‘em myself, so this old one is all you get. Let me see your head. The spring water isn’t powerful but it should help things along.” Cupping a long-fingered hand under the water, Grimmjow raised it to trickle over the place on Ichigo’s head where the pain was worst. “I haven’t used this gem in a while. They get kinda slow if you just leave ‘em out in the dry.” Wet fingertips, careful to turn their claws away, slowly rubbed at the drying blood on his face until it turned wet again and dripped freely. Since it was Grimmjow’s fault he was hurt in the first place Ichigo didn’t even tell him to stop, just let his head be propped up with a cradling hand and shut his eyes, while the other pushed blood around on his cheek and washed it away. It felt kinda nice by then, not too hot at all.

“Ow,” Ichigo said again, almost placidly. The fingers on his cheek hesitated their path for a moment, a thumb brushing the curve of his cheekbone back and forth.

“Sorry. I should’ve remembered you were just a human. Never thought much about it at the time. I lost it when you said Aizen’s name. S’been…nobody’s even mentioned him in decades.” Another palmful of water ran down from Ichigo’s temple to his chin. Across his chest, the stone seemed to hum. “They all think he’s just another noble youkai lord. The ryuujin of the dragon tribe.” The musical song of water and the low rumble of Grimmjow’s voice was all Ichigo could hear. “Nobody asked how he got so high in the tribe. Youngest in eight hundred years. Probably ate his siblings in the nest.”

Exhaling a laugh through his nose, Ichigo opened his eyes to join him with an insult and stopped. All his thoughts flew out of his muddled mind the moment he realised Grimmjow’s face was very close to his. Breath touched the wet side of his face, cooling the skin there as fingers rubbed carefully around the edge of the cut on his forehead, washing it clean with the strange water of the spring. The gem felt more like a comforting coal against his chest by that point, but Ichigo didn’t look down to study it. Grimmjow’s intent concentration on his task was way more interesting.

“Hey, Grimmjow…I’m sorry about what happened to your clan and the other demons. I wish I could have stopped it.”

Sharp-clawed fingers stilled on his brow, and Grimmjow’s intent expression blanked. Slowly, blue eyes dropped down to look at him. There didn’t seem to be any anger in them, but Ichigo felt his stomach tense in anticipation anyway. This was still the same demon who had smashed his head into a rock wall. Maybe he shouldn’t still be talking about the massacre. Why had he started talking about the massacre again?

“What’s that sad face for? Stupid. You didn’t know them.” The thumb that stroked over Ichigo’s brow didn’t touch the worst of his wound. It was almost as gentle as his voice. “Doubt I’m the same as this other me from your world. Doubt Nelliel was either. It can’t all be the same, human. Don’t go mourning an idea just to have some shit to be sad about. We’re alive and that’s what counts.”

At that point the gem around Ichigo’s neck started to glow with a dark blue internal light, slowly filtering through the dead black exterior. His head wasn’t so sore anymore—in fact as the light grew brighter, his pain receded further. Healing magic in the Spirit Society didn’t feel like any old kidou spell. It felt like it was speaking words into his bones, into his blood and his skin, telling it to knit back together and be all right again. It felt warm, and primal. It…felt kind of like Grimmjow, if someone could wring him out and put him inside a jewel. The look in his eyes matched the gem in ways Ichigo couldn’t explain. And maybe he was still suffering a serious head injury. He tried to organise his feelings into a reply.

“I’m sorry that you’re alone,” Ichigo said simply. Grimmjow just tucked the corner of his mouth in like he was trying not to reply and scratched the blue marking on one pale cheek. His glossy horns were reflecting the shifting light. Ichigo looked away. “Then again, I guess you’ve got Hands to keep you company.”

“Not much of a conversationalist,” Grimmjow admitted, seeming finally satisfied with Ichigo’s wound and sitting beside him on the smooth rock shelf in the spring. Ichigo felt their bare thighs brush a little and wondered if it was just the gem making him hum from the inside out. “Plays a mean game of shadow puppets, but whatever it knows that I don’t, it’s not tellin’ anytime soon. Could be worse.”

“How?”

“Could be dead with the rest of them.” At Ichigo’s stricken look Grimmjow actually snorted; his nose scrunching slightly with his sudden grin. His incisors were exposed for a moment, knife sharp and gleaming, but nowhere near the mouthful of razors his teeth could be when he was properly angry. “C’mon, dip your head in the water a little. It should finish off the last of that wound.”

Ichigo complied, but it mostly involved letting Grimmjow’s clawed hand cup the back of his skull and press him down face-first into the hot water. Opening his eyes under there felt dangerous, but the sight was too amazing not to try. Rippling multicoloured lights blazed up at him, pouring from round gems resting on the spring’s bed. The mineral-rich water didn’t hurt his eyes. Around his neck, the now-dark blue gem was radiating a beautiful marine light. But if Grimmjow hadn’t made it, who had?

“I think I’m better now,” Ichigo said when he burst back out of the water, knocking aside the plunging hand. “You can stop trying to drown me.”

“Humans can’t hold their breath for very long,” Grimmjow said critically, but let him go. He even helped to smooth water off his cheeks and hair, even if it had the unfortunate side-effect of plastering his hair to his head. “You feel better now, right? The gem is old but it’s still got all its magic.”

“Yeah,” Ichigo replied, poking at his hairline. The skin was smooth again with no hint of tenderness. “That’s a pretty cool gem. Thanks.” He reached around his neck to take it off but Grimmjow just knocked his hand away, pushing off the edge of the spring to lazily glide through the water.

“Keep it on.”

“Why? Are you planning on smashing my head into rocks again? Because that’s pretty rude host behaviour, if you ask me.”

“Nah, it’s because you’re all soft.” On the other side of the spring, Grimmjow gave him a sudden toothy grin. “Besides, if it comes out that you really are a spy, Hands will just grab an arm each and pull. No rocks needed.”

“Try it, I’ll show you how soft I really am,” Ichigo replied threateningly, which made Grimmjow burst out laughing for some reason. Maybe it had something to do with being naked and easily manhandled—or was that demonhandled?—into a hot spring while concussed. It was on the tip of Ichigo’s tongue to tell him in great detail just how strong he could really be, but instinct told him that appearing as a squashy little human was half the reason Grimmjow immediately liked him. Post-murder attempt, at least. Unveiling himself as a threat probably wouldn’t do much to endear him.

They got out of the water soon after that, Ichigo plucked out by Hands like a kitten by the nape of his neck and then fanned dry while Grimmjow shook himself off like a dog somewhere out of sight behind the rocks. Privately, Ichigo could admit he’d been trying to catch a glimpse of him naked. For parallel universe research purposes, of course. The tattooed black of a styled number six was already posing big questions, because if Aizen hadn’t put it there, what did the six mean in this world? And the hollow hole, was it just a demon hole? Did they all have one? So much seemed similar to the people he knew in his world, but it was all shifted slightly left of what he’d assumed. Ichigo couldn’t take the Spirit Society lightly—not if there was another version of Aizen out there.

The question was, Ichigo thought as he pulled on his clothes and slapped Hands’ attempts to help away, would Grimmjow even let him help like he wanted to? Or was he just another amusing human, of no particular use except as a funny pet that posed no real threat? Worse, would he start thinking he was one of Aizen’s little minions, like Gin and Tousen? The very idea of those two working for him again was just a theory. Who the hell knew.

“You need to eat, right?” Grimmjow asked as he rounded his rock corner, yanking at the layers of fabric, rope and metal that covered him from the waist down. His wet hair was roughly combed back by hand into an almost perfect replica of his hairstyle before. “You eat fish? I’m good at catching fish.”

“Fish sounds great,” Ichigo said, trying not to show his surprise. A thought occurred to him. “You mean just regular fish, right? Not…fish youkai or anything?”

“Yeah, regular fish. I’d harpoon that asshole Ukitake any day, but he’s too fast underwater. Cod’s all you get.”

“Ukitake?” Ichigo repeated, something strange and joyful slowly expanding in his chest. “Ukitake Jushirou? He’s alive in this place too?” When Grimmjow just shifted from foot to foot, giving him a narrow look, Ichigo darted over and gripped him by the arms, thumbs pressing in the soft bend of his elbows. “Hey, who else? Unohana-san? The old man? Komamura-san? Is Tousen still alive here? He was always kind of a sanctimonious jerk but some people really missed him after he died.” When Grimmjow just stared at him, Ichigo felt his excitement come down a few notches. Several hundred, in fact. Had he said more spy stuff? “Grimmjow?”

Looking down at the hands touching his mismatched arms, to the necklace hanging across Ichigo’s chest and up to his face, Grimmjow seemed to be puzzling something out. Whether to kill him? It was so hard to tell with this one. The other Grimmjow only had one mode: fight. This one had more facets than those gems in the water. Eventually Grimmjow reached up and clapped a palm to either side of Ichigo’s face and squeezed slightly, smushing his cheeks up a little. Despite having one black hand and one pale one, both palms felt the same. The faint prickle of claws brushing his hairline behind his ears sent crazy shivers into his scalp.

“So you lost a few too, huh.” Like his tone, Grimmjow’s eyes weren’t unkind. The commiseration of the left behind, maybe. Between the hands Ichigo shook his head a little.

“I wasn’t close to them. But there was this huge war a couple of years ago and it took some of the strongest shinigami with it. Maybe it’d be nice to see them again, even if they don’t know me.” He shrugged a little. “Whatever. Go find me some food. I’ll start a fire while you’re gone.”

Grimmjow’s eyebrows shot up. “You know how to? Without a gem?”

“What, you don’t?” Ichigo replied, thinking about Isshin’s old lighter sitting in the bottom of his gym bag. “I thought you were a master of living rough. That’s sad. You shouldn’t rely on gems for everything, you know.” It was a miracle he kept a straight face after the filthy look Grimmjow gave him.

“You’re a little asshole, anyone ever tell you that?” Grimmjow squished his cheeks extra hard like he was trying to crack a giant walnut. “Can’t believe I felt sorry for you. Fuck off and make a fire then. Hands!”

“Nonono—” Twin blue palms flew at him like birds of prey, barely dodged. Hitting the stone hard, Ichigo commando rolled under them and skidded up to his feet, hurtling down the tunnel and back in the opposite direction to the boneyard. “I can walk on my own, damn it!”

Ichigo took two wrong turns and came to a dead end before Hands found him and scooped him up. Absolute indignity, again. He wasn’t a fucking pet cat! Worse, Grimmjow’s wicked laugh echoed through the tunnels back at him like he knew exactly what had happened. Arms and legs crossed as he sat on the worlds worst magic carpet, scowling hugely, Ichigo hoped he fell in the water and Ukitake bit him.

Ukitake. Alive. And a Rukia who hadn’t had to grieve the loss of him. Already the place felt like a utopia for that alone, except for the fucking arrancar genocide. Demon. Whatever. Some things were backwards and happening out of order, but the big events still felt the same. Gin had been the biggest hint that it was all about to go sour again. Was he still a double agent, acting only for himself and Rangiku-san? _Was_ there a Rangiku-san? Images of her with a pair of kitsune ears and a bushy tail lit up his imagination—and heated his cheeks a little. God, maybe Kon was rubbing off on him. And that officially sounded even worse than intended.

Poking the ghost hand beneath him, feeling a texture a little like cold leather, Ichigo wondered exactly how sentient the severed parts were. How did they see and hear? Was Grimmjow the only one who could command them? And why the hell did they like him so much?

Being in the Spirit Society was just piling questions on top of questions the longer Ichigo thought about everything. When he’d planned to come, he’d thought maybe he’d just find the demon Grimmjow again, build an instant rapport somehow and spend a few days hanging out in the enormous creepy cave. Instead he’d immediately found violence, mucous-dripping glow worms, a boneyard he’d officially put a reflective cork in until he could process it and he’d been undressed and bathed against his will. At first, anyway. To say nothing of the Aizen threat—something he desperately needed to know more about.

Tread carefully, his common sense said sagely.

Put your face in Grimmjow’s fur, his hormones countered.

Ichigo sighed and flopped back on the giant palm whisking him through the tunnels. Maybe he just needed to calm down and wait for an opportunity for either to arise. It was supposed to be a vacation from his life, anyway.

Yeah, maybe he just needed to relax.


	2. Chapter 2

“So, if there’s another me out there in your world,” Grimmjow said between toothy bites of fish, gesturing across the campfire, “then how come you don’t know about Hands? Seems suspicious if you ask me.”

“He doesn’t have a Hands,” Ichigo replied, wondering if that was the correct grammar. Speared on a thin tree branch, the gutted and scaled fish seemed to look back at him in unimpressed judgement. Ichigo took another careful bite out of its middle, careful only to scrape the bones. “He’s different to you. He’s got a sword instead. I think it has cat powers in it.”

“Cat?” Grimmjow repeated, stretching his bare feet toward the fire. “I don’t trust cats.”

“You don’t trust anyone.”

“And that’s how I’m still alive,” Grimmjow said with satisfaction. Ichigo couldn’t really argue with that, all things considered.

It had been an hour since Grimmjow returned from wherever the hell, sporting a line of six fat little cod and an air of immense superiority. It had faded the moment he realised the interior cavern that Hands had dropped Ichigo in was lit with a warm red-gold light, fresh dry branches fuelling a large campfire and some old split logs waiting to fill it once it stabilised. Ichigo was going to take the secret of the lighter to his grave unless Hands managed to figure out how to write in the dirt. The open appreciation on Grimmjow’s marked face was all the reward he needed.

It had taken a while to cook the fish, even with an iron rack that Grimmjow pulled out of one of his random junk heaps in another cave passage. Instead of spearing them on sticks like Ichigo had seen on television, they’d been laid out on racks of wire that could sit over the fire. It was useful, but it also got Ichigo thinking.

“You talked about beating down some silver before. Are demons good at metalwork?”

Grimmjow shrugged, grabbing a fish and throwing it to Hands. Wherever it went, the crunchy sounds said Ichigo didn’t want to really know.

“Metal, gems, rocks, crystals. Anything that comes from the earth we’re pretty good with.” He nodded at the flames. “Not good with elements really, unless it’s gem-powered. They deny us.”

“Who does?”

“Dunno. Lesser elementals. Resentment for our power to demand theirs into gems, I s’pose. Earth is always ours though. They can’t refuse us that one.” Using his thumb claw, Grimmjow picked a piece of fish out of his canine and looked at it. “One day I’ll make ‘em all bow so low their eyeballs will touch the dirt.” He ate the morsel a second time.

“I think you might be angry at the wrong people,” Ichigo told him, reaching over to drink from a ladle sitting in a wooden bucket of clean water. “If all they’re guilty of is wanting nothing to do with you, don’t you think you’re guilty of the same thing as well?”

Fish halfway to his mouth, Grimmjow paused and gave him a long, measuring look. Between them the fire crackled and spat small red sparks up into the air, smoke trailing upward into cracked stone in the cavern ceiling. It probably vented out somewhere outside, since the vacuum of air kept sucking the smoke straight up there. Ichigo adjusted his ass slightly on the folded up cushion of his coat and reached up to touch the gem hanging around his neck. He had questions about the blue and teal design. Either the demon clans had specific colour coordination rules or the necklace had been made especially for Grimmjow. Someone had wanted to protect him. Someone who was probably dead now.

“Quit making me think about this shit,” Grimmjow said finally, and went back to eating his fish. The hand that reached around and snatched the water ladle back said he wasn’t as calm as he tried to sound. Ichigo gave an internal shrug and started on the other side of his fish. Apologising seemed counterproductive and besides, he wasn’t even sorry.

Picking the bones clean on his meal, Ichigo found himself wondering if Kon was okay. That stuffed idiot always landed on his feet, and he’d pelted away toward the high walls of the tengu compound with high spirits, but that didn’t mean Byakuya had welcomed him with open arms. What if Rukia hadn’t been home? Or she’d forgotten somehow? Hell, what if Gin had met him at the gates just like last time? Maybe it would pay to take a stroll past the place in the morning, or whatever passed for morning in a place that always seemed to be stuck in perpetual autumn dusk. Just to be on the safe side. And maybe to see Rukia again.

That thought gave him another one. Throwing his fishbones to Hands and sucking his fingers clean, Ichigo wiped them on his jeans and got to his feet, circling the fire until he could sit down next to Grimmjow and his billowing pants. In the firelight, the engraved metal plate bound at his hips looked almost bronze.

“Are you staring at my dick?” Grimmjow asked, following his gaze down to his lap.

“I was wondering what the metal is for.”

“For not getting my dick stabbed off.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Not a lot of mystery to it.”

“Why do you wear so much stuff?” Ichigo blurted. “Grimmjow in my world doesn’t have any of it. He barely wears anything; just a jumpsuit, jacket and swordbelts. And boots. But you look like one of those puff pastries with five hundred layers.”

It could have been the opening statement of another argument, but Grimmjow just scratched his blue-marked cheek again and shrugged. With a quick, practised movement, he reached over and twisted the manacle-like bicep cuff on his other arm until it gave way, falling down to his elbow and off his forearm. He handed it to Ichigo like it was nothing.

“I like making stuff. Unless I was gonna give Hands a full set of rings there’s no-one who wants this junk, so I wear it. The cloth I took from Shawlong and Illfordt’s shit. They’re the only ones who had any decent taste.” Grimmjow watched Ichigo turn the warm metal over carefully, fingers falling in the engraved lines. It was still bright and shining, probably from wear more than any real polishing attempts. But then, maybe not. More and more Grimmjow seemed like a dragon himself, hoarding his jewels and snarling at everything that came near, wearing his gold and silver with pride. Maybe Aizen and his dragon tribe really did share some blood with the other demons. Like hell Ichigo was ever going to mention it though.

“It’s nice,” Ichigo said honestly, trying to fit the cuff on his own bicep. It was disappointingly loose. “I swear I work out.”

“Need to get you on an anvil,” was all Grimmjow said, but his lips were twitching. “Few swings of a hammer and you’ll be fitting that cuff in no time.”

A lightbulb went on inside Ichigo’s head. “That’s why you don’t wear any clothes up top, isn’t it? They’d burn from forge sparks and get dirty. You’re a blacksmith!”

“I’m a demon,” was the laughing reply. “But I guess you’re onto something. Clothes just get ruined otherwise.” Taking the cuff back and sliding it up his arm, Grimmjow hesitated a second before dropping his arm loosely across Ichigo’s shoulders, jiggling him roughly. “You get real excited over dumb shit.”

“I’d be offended, but I’m too busy picturing you hammering away at a forge. Do you have to use fire gems to heat it up?”

“Good guess,” was the reluctant reply. Ichigo was pulling on the fingers dangling over his shoulder by then, inspecting each blue-green claw. They seemed just a little bit darker than the catlike swipe of colour in the corner of Grimmjow’s eyes. The points were sharp, but not like razors. Above them, the skin was jet black and kind of strange to the touch, almost like the feel of suede, or something with such short fur it was invisible to the eye. Ichigo curiously swept his bare palm up it until he came to a streak of brilliant blue-white across his forearm. It looked like it’d burn if he tried to touch it, or maybe like it would tingle the way batteries did when you put your tongue on them. Not that he was thinking of putting his tongue on Grimmjow.

“It’s getting late for you, human. You need to sleep? You can sleep on my furs, I guess.”

“This one?” Ichigo said, pointing at the buckled blue-black plushness sitting on Grimmjow’s shoulder. “You don’t have to take it off.” The friendly arm across his shoulders became a headlock until Ichigo felt his eyeballs throb, forcing him to tap out.

“Not this one,” Grimmjow said at length, like maybe Ichigo was brain-damaged. “My furs. Where I sleep.”

“You said you didn’t have beds.”

“I don’t. Wait here.”

What followed was a weird procession where Ichigo was left sitting by the fire, feeding a new log into it while Grimmjow and Hands disappeared for long minutes, finally returning with what looked like an entire zoo full of multicoloured fur pelts. Judging the distance between the fire and the potential new site carefully, Grimmjow meticulously laid out each fur in order by what looked like size and quality. Some that were too small to be used were laid out around the edges, raising them up into a nest-like curve. What resulted was a plush pile of fur pelts laid out one over the other until they made a circle large enough to easily fit two. Ichigo bit his lower lip hard as he stared at the mess of coloured stripes and spots that marked each black or brown fur. Was the fur from…them? In the boneyard? God, it looked comfortable though.

“They’re not haunted,” Grimmjow said flatly, reading Ichigo’s face perfectly. “They’re clan pelts, like this one.” He touched his shoulder, fingers sinking deep into the softness. “They’re ancestral things, spelled against wear. I move them around so I don’t sleep in the same cavern all the time.”

“You’re really paranoid, you know.”

“I’m letting you stay, aren’t I?” A clawed finger pointed at the furs. “Sleep there when you get tired. I’ve gotta go do something.”

“You’re leaving me here alone?”

“Yeah. If you get lost you’ll probably die, so don’t wander.”

If he was left behind he’d never find his way out again. “What if I need the bathroom?”

“The what?”

“If I have to—” Pee? Urinate? Empty the tank? Flood the dangai? In wordless frustration Ichigo just cut two hands down at his crotch and gave Grimmjow a mutinous look. “Look, I drank a lot of water. Is there a way out for me to take care of that if I need to?”

“Can’t you just piss in the bucket? You’re less likely to be eaten that way.”

“Who the fuck is gonna eat me?! Do I look tasty to you?” Ichigo blustered, frustrated and embarrassed by the whole conversation. “Nobody is hostile except you! And maybe Gin! And probably Aizen! But unless they’re waiting at the cave mouth to kidnap me, I think I’m pretty safe to take a leak behind a tree somewhere.”

“Tch. Your funeral.” But he gestured for Ichigo to follow him.

It was a surprisingly short journey to get outside, though it took a few stomach-sucking side-steps to get through the narrower parts of the passage. Grimmjow slipped through them like an eel; a feat Ichigo gave him points for since he seemed to be broader than Ichigo was. Maybe the pants were just throwing off perspective. Ichigo memorised the small twists and forks to get back to the sleeping cavern where the fire and food was as best he could.

“Oh man, it’s so nice here,” Ichigo said when they finally broke out of the darkness and into the fresh air. They’d come out of some kind of small, hidden side-passage. “Glow worm caves are great and all, but nothing beats an open sky.” He pointed at the purple horizon, where dots of sparkling white light were beginning to show through. “I don’t even know these constellations. Why aren’t you on top of the mountain instead of under it?” Without waiting for an answer Ichigo headed for the small clearing at the base of the mountain, his eyes on a particularly thick tree that’d give him coverage while he pressed Grimmjow for more answers. He might stop giving them at any time, after all. It was normal to oppressively interrogate people you hardly knew, right?

“Need the underground spring,” Grimmjow replied, scouting around the clearing with narrow-eyed suspicion. “I think someone’s been here.”

“Naturally,” Ichigo muttered to himself, earning a sharp ear-flick from a giant claw that nearly made him piss on his own shoes. “Ow! Fuck off. I’ve got my hands full.”

“That’s a generous statement,” said a distracted voice from off in the bushes somewhere. Ichigo gaped around the side of the tree, his cheeks burning. Grimmjow was taking time out of his busy tinfoil hat-making schedule to roast him. “I swear this log wasn’t busted last time I was out here. You see any tracks over there?”

“No.” Ichigo barely bothered to look. Finishing up, he zipped himself back to order in record time. “But then I’m not a cave-dwelling troll who can see these things. Who cares if someone walked by out here?”

Grimmjow looked, well, kinda grim. “It’s inside my boundary. Nothing should even be able to cross the wards except for animals and humans.”

“Why animals and humans?”

“Shitty attack power. And for hunting.”

“Hey.”

“Relax. I’m not gonna eat you.” Running his fingertips down the rough bark of a nearby tree, Grimmjow pulled off a red-gold maple leaf and sniffed it. His eyes darkened to stormy blue. “Time to go back inside the mountain, human.”

Ichigo, still skulking around his piss tree, was silently in mourning over the eating comment. What a missed opportunity to make his intentions known. Well, sorta. What the hell were his intentions? This Grimmjow was equal parts terrifying demon and absolute dumbass. The weird part was, Ichigo found that pretty fucking hot. He’d never thought he’d be into it, but the Spirit Society was really full of surprises. Including being picked up without hesitation and thrown over Grimmjow’s furry shoulder like an old-timey sack of flour.

“You’re too slow,” Grimmjow said by way of explanation when Ichigo yelled about it. “I don’t like the air out here. Something feels off.”

“Then you go back in!” Trying to lay a decent kick into him, Ichigo felt his foot bounce off metal plate. Huh, that thing really was handy. “You don’t need to drag me with you!” A hand grabbed his foot and pulled it away.

“How the hell can I protect you if I’m not with you?”

“Protect?” Ichigo repeated. He fell still, blinking out at the bobbing landscape of red and purple. “Protect me? I don’t need protecting. You’re the one who’s probably on Aizen’s hit list.” When was the last time someone said they’d protect him? When was the last time he’d let them? He didn’t need it. He’d never needed it. That was the whole point of him.

“You’re probably tough in your world, but here you’re fair game.” Grimmjow’s words were simple, truthful and not even trying to insult him. When Ichigo kicked again he bent, letting him slither down his front until his feet hit the ground. But he didn’t let go, black and pale palms resting firmly on his shoulders. The blue eyes turned down to his were fierce and serious. “Everything here likes to get its hands on humans for one reason or another. Food, spells, souls, deals, magical fuel, slaves—your flesh alone is probably good for like thirty different potions. You’re lucky that tengu woman was on your side and that the fox just wanted to use you last time you were here.” Knuckles rapped hard on the top of Ichigo’s head. “This place isn’t as safe as you think it is, stupid.”

“Don’t mistake me for an ordinary human, Grimmjow,” Ichigo said impatiently, hooking a finger under one of the sinew necklaces hanging across his chest. “I’m a shinigami substitute. I’ve ended wars, I’ve taken down entire hoards of hollows—”

“Are you one right now?”

“What?”

“A shinigami whatever. Are you being one right now, or can you only do it when you’re flapping around in the black outfit with the sword?”

Ichigo chewed his lip. That felt like a trap.

“I need to leave this body to transform into one. But I’ve got my badge in my bag—”

“Where’s your bag?” Grimmjow pounced, tugging the necklace out of his fingers. In a bizarre display, he put Ichigo’s fingers between his teeth and bit down. Before Ichigo’s startled eyes, Hands lit with a bright blue fire and fanned open behind Grimmjow like the threatening hood of a cobra, claws curved and shining. The teeth clamped around his fingers sharpened up like a mouthful of knives, and when Grimmjow’s hands moved, so did the demonic ones behind him in perfect tandem. Ichigo knew what it was: a demonstration of strength. And without his badge, he was only as strong as his resolve not to show any fear. Besides, he wasn’t afraid. Not of Grimmjow. Not of any version of him, in any lifetime. He wasn’t unnecessarily cruel to the weak—and this blue oni and his spirit partner thought that was exactly what Kurosaki Ichigo was.

“My bag is inside the cave,” Ichigo said, looking him dead in the eye. With a careful tug, he pulled his fingers free when Grimmjow’s jaw relaxed. “Where I can’t get to it. And if I ran, you could catch me long before I made it inside. I get it, okay? While I’m human, I’m an easy target and not everything out here is nice and friendly. That still doesn’t mean I need you hauling me around the place like luggage. Besides, you might look badass, but I clearly remember you panicking when Kon said he was going to watch you pee for the rest of your life. He’s a stuffed lion, Grimmjow. Have some pride.”

“That thing was fuckin’ unnatural, and you should drop it in the maggot trench next time you see it.”

“Not everything has to go in the maggot trench, you know. Why do you even have one of those?”

“Bait,” Grimmjow said, like it was obvious. “For fishing and stuff.”

“It’s the ‘and stuff’ I’m worried about.” Shrugging off the hands on his shoulders, Ichigo didn’t leave right away. He had some business to attend to. “Hey, don’t get offended.”

“About what—” Anything else Grimmjow might have said trailed off in a startled noise when Ichigo stepped in, ducked a little and pushed his entire face into Grimmjow’s plush shoulder pelt, right in the ribbon of sky blue that ran through the black.

“Oh man, that’s the stuff.” The words probably didn’t make it out of the fine strands of luxurious fur Ichigo’s face was pushed into, but he heard them and that was what counted. It was like face-planting into a cloud. A black and blue cloud of pure softness. It smelled faintly like campfire in there.

“Oi.” A hand grabbed his shoulder and shook it slightly. “What am I supposed to be offended about?”

Absolute dumbass. Ichigo pulled in a happy breath through his nose and rubbed his cheek in a bit. When he lifted his head and blinked hazily up at Grimmjow, confused blue eyes were staring down at him. A pinched claw tugged a loose strand of fur off his cheek.

“Well?”

“Your fur pelt smells like smoke. Can I have it as a pillow tonight? You can keep wearing it if you want.”

“Why do you keep saying stuff like that?” Grimmjow muttered, pushing him to arm’s length. He scanned the tree-line and the clearing for another moment. “C’mon now. You’ve pissed enough.” When Ichigo tried to follow his gaze, seeing only beautiful autumn leaves and a lilac evening sky, he was spun around and pushed toward the narrow entrance they’d slipped out of. It wasn’t the wide front tunnel Ichigo had originally used; that was around the other side of the mountain somewhere. This felt like a secluded courtyard of trees, or a quiet grove hidden by the thickness of the shrubbery and maples surrounding it. A place nobody could really find unless they were sniffing around on purpose.

They were halfway back to the small cave passage when Grimmjow’s hands slid away from Ichigo’s shoulders. It felt like there was a realisation in the sudden movement.

“What is it?”

“Think I might’ve busted that log myself throwing the tengu woman’s pumpkins away last month. Saw some seeds around the base that probably came from it.” The set of his shoulders relaxed a bit. “Guess there’s no intruders after all.”

“Pumpkins?” Ichigo repeated. “You said she was giving you fruit baskets.”

“They were in with fruit! I don’t fucking know. Colourful shit. Pears and apples and stuff. Berries.”

“Maybe Rukia doesn’t know what demons eat and just threw in everything from the garden.”

“And hoped it would poison me.”

Ichigo gave up for about the third time that day. Grabbing clawed fingers with both hands, hearing the click of them pushed together, he started tugging Grimmjow with him along the thin dirt path they’d come from. Thankfully there was no resistance, just the trudge of footsteps after him.

They were in the darkness of the passage by the time Ichigo thought of something.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t have anywhere to wash my hands before.”

“What?”

“You just second-hand touched my dick.”

“So one percent of my palm just got tainted with human dick?”

“You know what, fuck off. I’m gonna piss on my hands during the night and rub them on your face.”

Grimmjow ducked when Ichigo spun around and leapt with his palms out, which was how he ended up making the rest of his journey sullenly playing with the tail end of the fur pelt from his position over Grimmjow’s shoulder again.

Whatever. Sometimes not flirting was the better part of valour. Especially when the recipient was any variation of Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. It just really wasn’t worth it.

Yeah.

He had some real nice fur, though.

* * *

The night—or what passed for one—finished under extremely unsexy circumstances, not least of which was realising Ichigo needed to clean his clothes somehow or else risk being the guy with two day old underwear. Luckily, half of his gym bag was stocked with various soaps, creams and, to Ichigo’s unending embarrassment, a jumbo tube of lubricant that Kon must have shoved in there. The former products were easily re-purposed for washing clothing, but that left an apparently hilarious gap in his logic.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Ichigo said through his teeth, clasping his tiny gym towel around his waist. Scrubbing had almost run his knuckles raw. “If you’re just going to stare and laugh you might as well help me wash my jeans.”

Grimmjow did nothing to help, just propped his cheek on one fist while he sprawled around the campfire, watching Ichigo use an old washboard and tub of water to clean his clothes while wearing none of them. It was probably real fucking hilarious. Big blue asshole.

It took Ichigo almost half an hour to clean everything to his own standards, and another twenty minutes to figure out a way to hang a line for drying his clothes near the fire. Grimmjow had textiles and junk for days and absolutely no willingness to help him out with any of them. By the end of it Ichigo was panting and the white towel was slipping off his ass, barely clenched with one fist to preserve modesty that had long since been lost. And you know what, fuck that towel anyway. It wasn’t like Grimmjow cared what was under it. Tone-deaf demon had no idea what flirting was.

Since he had too much style to wear his coat with nothing under it and therefore look like a street flasher, Ichigo had cleaned it too and ended up back in front of the fire wearing just his towel, feeling scrawny and underfed while Grimmjow lounged about in muscular repose, his mouth tilted in a crooked smile.

Ichigo was sucking on his knuckles belligerently when Grimmjow jerked his chin at the piled-up furs.

“Why don’t you get some sleep? I know humans need a lot of it.”

“I don’t want to sleep naked.”

“So put a fur over yourself.”

“I don’t want to go to sleep while you’re creeping off to do secret demon things. What was it you wanted to do before?”

Grimmjow shook his head. “Nothing secret about it; I walk the perimeter of the wards every day. Was heading out to do it when I felt you cross them.”

Right, because everybody was just itching to break into glow worm mountain. Figuring his clothes were probably fine to dry overnight by the fire, Ichigo got up and stepped into the fur nest that Grimmjow and Hands had made. The blue apparition had vanished again like it seemed wont to do. Ichigo tried not to think about the chances of waking up to find a giant palm smothering his entire body. What if it just grabbed him while he slept? But Grimmjow was nodding approvingly as Ichigo settled himself down there, and the layers of thick fur made for a really soft makeshift mattress. Dropping himself down onto his knees there was easy, and so was pulling a big red-black fur over his entire body. The underside of the hide felt like suede; bare but soft and luxurious. It also covered his junk and the rest of him decently so he could pull the gym towel out and toss it off the edge of the furs.

Blinking up at the rough stone illuminated by the shifting firelight, Ichigo burrowed himself down into the furs and pushed his top pelt down to the centre of his chest. It was actually damn comfortable. Did they smell like Grimmjow? They only seemed to smell like campfire to him. It was still nice.

“What are all these bottles?” Grimmjow asked after a small period of silence, seemingly okay with putting off his perimeter check for a while. Instead he was rummaging through Ichigo’s gym bag and pulling out his belongings to squint at his array of hygiene items. He had to pull them all the way back to arm’s length to read the labels, which was such an old man move that Ichigo actually laughed at him. “What? What’s funny?”

“You don’t see so well up close, do you?” Rolling onto his side, Ichigo propped his chin on the edge of his new fur nest. “I just threw in everything I thought I wouldn’t find here. Soap, lotion, toothpaste, antiseptic, a few energy bars, my towel, my phone and wallet, my badge—”

“This is the shinigami badge?” Grimmjow rummaged around and pulled out the carved wooden shape of his ticket to overpowered godhood. “This wooden skull thing turns you into that blackbird?”

“Shut up about the colour scheme! But yeah, it transforms me. I’m insanely strong in that form.” Good chance to boast after being underestimated all afternoon.

“Huh.” Grimmjow looked at the badge in his hand, wide trousers folded into a neat tuck as he sat on the firelit stone. “So if you lose this, you can’t change?”

“I’m just me without it.”

“Good,” Grimmjow said, snapping the badge in half and throwing it into the fire. “You’re safer that way.”

“No!” Ichigo howled, jumping out of his fur and toward the fire, trying to pull out his badge in time. “I need it! Without—it’s the only way I can transform! What if you need me? What if something happens and—”

“Calm down, human,” Grimmjow said, knocking his hands away from the fire. When Ichigo tried to reach back in he grabbed them in both clawed hands. They felt cool compared to the fire. Panting, Ichigo glared up at his face, but it was like looking into a stone wall. Blue eyes like chips of glass looked back at him. “This is the Spirit Society. Maybe you needed to save your world, but this one is mine. So are you. I’m not gonna let you die to avenge people you only think you know. Nelliel, Starrk, whoever else you looked at, they’re dead and gone. Even Aizen couldn’t bring them back if he wanted. This fight is mine. I don’t want you flapping in thinking you gotta look after me. I could make paste out of you.”

Ichigo looked down at the hands clasped around his. “But…I’m strong, Grimmjow. I can be your ally.” Swallowing, he blurted, “The other Grimmjow never let me be that. I’m good. I swear, I’m good. I can watch your back.”

“No doubt. But there’s a rule here,” Grimmjow said, squeezing his hands. “The guests to this dimension are protected by the clan that takes them in. That makes you mine this time. Just mine.” Slanted blue eyes burned into Ichigo’s, warm and severe. “Would you expect a guest to make you dinner? Wash your dishes?”

“No.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. “But—”

“Exactly. This shit isn’t your problem.” Releasing his hands, a pale hand with a soft manacle of blue-black on its wrist reached up and scruffed up his hair. Grimmjow’s eyes were warm. “I like you, human. I think you’re telling the truth when you talk to me. So I’m not gonna let you fuck yourself up for this place. Talk whatever shit you want, but you’re not fighting my battles.”

If the destruction of his badge hadn’t done it, the calm certainty in Grimmjow’s words convinced Ichigo that he was dead serious about leaving him out of anything resembling a fight. Him. Kurosaki Ichigo, sidelined like a weak loser. Because of what? Some stupid old hearth rule about guests? Seemed pretty fucking convenient.

“If you’re going to keep me here and useless I should just go home,” Ichigo said sharply, looking away from Grimmjow’s stupid friendly face. “Tomorrow when my clothes are dry I’ll find Rukia and get her to send me back.”

“Suit yourself.” Grimmjow’s throat bobbed a little. White fangs chewed on the corner of his lip for a moment. Then, “Thought you said you wanted to stay with me?”

“You don’t even want me!” Red-cheeked, belatedly realising that he was still crouched there naked in the firelight, Ichigo tried to arrange his hurt thoughts into something that made sense. He grabbed the gym towel and dumped it on his lap. “You won’t let me go anywhere by myself, you won’t let me fight—you think I’m just some run of the mill human. You don’t even know my name. Well, good luck with your shitty war. Tomorrow I’ll tell Rukia everything I know and go back where I came from.”

Finally, something unhappy crossed Grimmjow’s remote expression.

“Course I want you. Think I get many visitors? Have a lot of friends? You’re the only person in the last century batshit enough to seek me out on purpose. Think I’m stupid for wanting to keep you alive and out of a fight?” When Ichigo just stared at him helplessly, frustrated and fists clenched, Grimmjow reached out and touched the necklace hanging over his heart. “There’s no gem that can bring back the dead, Kurosaki Ichigo. I’ll see Aizen dead one way or another. I got nothing but time. But if I manage it and you end up getting killed, then that’s the same as losing to me.”

Ichigo’s anger melted away like morning frost in the sun. What a smooth fucking talker. He glanced away; at the cave walls, his clothes, the washing bucket. Anything but Grimmjow’s soft expression.

“Do you always get attached to people this fast?”

“Pickings are pretty slim around here. Gotta take what I can get.”

“Just say you like me.”

“Already did that.”

“Then say it again but differently,” Ichigo challenged. Grimmjow stole his towel instead, leaving him yelping and covering his dick. “For fuck’s sake! Give that back!”

“Get into the furs, human. I’ve got a perimeter to check.”

Leaving Ichigo hunched up next to the fire, Grimmjow dumped the towel over the sagging clothesline and took the side passage that led back out to the grove. Having no clothes to wear was enough of a deterrent that Ichigo didn’t even bother to follow.

Once the footsteps had echoed away, Ichigo shoved his hands back into the fire. It took him three tries to get the first half of his broken badge out of the flames, eventually using one of the metal prongs for cooking to lever it out. But it was no use; the fire had blackened and charred its face until the skull motif was unrecognisable. The other half had tumbled face-down into the coals and looked even worse off. Flames had actually caught the broken centre of it, eating away at the old wood.

“Shit,” Ichigo whispered, dumping the badge back into the fire in resignation. If he wanted to transform during his time in the Spirit Society, Kon was going to be his only ticket. Which meant getting to the tengu compound just shot to the top of his to-do list for tomorrow, regardless of his decision to stick around. As if that had ever been in doubt. Washing his hands in the laundry water quickly, he slouched his way back over to the furry bed he’d jumped out of and pulled the pelts all the way up to his chin.

Things had actually worked out okay, in the scope of his original plan. Only half a day’s effort and he was already naked in Grimmjow’s bed. Alone, sure, but it was fast progress. Still, all of the other stuff, the Aizen revelation and the boneyard had completely obscured what he’d only intended to be a vacation in weird doppelganger youkai town. And this Grimmjow was…really lonely, to just accept him into the mountain so quickly. Ichigo knew he didn’t have any magical powers and he sure wasn’t some kind of irresistible specimen. Grimmjow had said it himself: nobody wanted to come near him. Except for maybe Rukia and her fruit baskets of gratitude. The difference was that Grimmjow saw him more like a pet than an equal. Something he had to look after, now that he no longer thought he was a spy.

Well, Ichigo didn’t have any experience in being coddled or protected, and he wasn’t interested in learning. He’d keep Kon’s ability to kick him out of his body a secret until he absolutely needed it. Interestingly, Grimmjow didn’t seem to realise Kon had anything to do with his transformation last time, despite standing right there with Rukia in his body when they’d last met. Maybe he hadn’t noticed that it was Kon at all—or far more likely, his rage at Gin’s trickery eclipsed everything else going on around him. Single-minded murderous intent was one thing both versions of him shared.

With Grimmjow gone, the cavern felt like it had tripled in size. Lying in his pile of plush fur, blinking up at the shadows the firelight made on the stalactites, Ichigo reached up to press a hand over the necklace Grimmjow had given him. The gem was black again, and had been since it had finished healing him in the water. Who had made it? Did this Grimmjow have parents? Siblings? Were they all dead in the boneyard too? The gem was different to the others in the spring. Maybe he could remember to ask about it when Grimmjow returned.

Or tomorrow, Ichigo thought drowsily, listening to the crackle of the fire. It’d probably be okay to sleep if it was only going to be the two of them. Three, if Hands was counted. Nothing was going to come in and attack them, not with those wards in place. Not even dragon Aizen, who sounded more like a mysterious bogeyman than the cruel shinigami genius who’d tried to overthrow Soul Society with a race of artificially evolved warriors. Ichigo wanted to meet him; wanted to look him directly in the eye and see if there was anything he recognised there. Smugness, smoke and mirrors, probably. And a lot of ego. Some scales, maybe some horns. Everyone seemed to have horns or fluffy ears in Spirit Society. Even Rukia had one. Why did a bird-woman have a horn? Didn’t make sense…

Ichigo drifted off still trying to puzzle out the tangled similarities in the strange world, his thoughts unravelling into a single warm, humming blank. Tomorrow, he remembered thinking before the shroud of sleep covered him. Tomorrow he could make a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this fic is far from the usual grimmichi wheelhouse, so i just wanted to say thank you for reading 😃 your comments are always so, so appreciated, but i gotta admit i'm a little insecure about this fic, so any feedback on it is _extra, suuuper_ appreciated. and if you have nothing to say, a little kudos of support always makes me smile!
> 
> with or without feedback though, just know i think you're totally cool for giving this fic a go ♥


	3. Chapter 3

Sleeping soundly wasn’t something Ichigo did a lot of. He tended to have bright, confusing dreams about nonsense that jolted him awake with a strange word on his lips, one foot still in whatever dream had consumed him. Waking up to a pressure like a rock on his chest was new, however. Breath stilling in his throat, terrified to discover what horrible thing Hands was doing to him, Ichigo looked down.

It was Grimmjow. Head on his chest like he was a pillow, lying cross-ways with his feet hanging over the edge of the furs. He was facing down the length of Ichigo’s body and seemed to be asleep in ways that would make a saint jealous. So much for all that twitchy paranoia.

Ichigo had never been anyone’s pillow before. It was really uncomfortable, especially because the furs had been peeled back and Grimmjow’s sweaty metal-cuffed ear was pressed directly to his chest. Right over his heart, actually.

“That’s cute,” Ichigo breathed into the quiet, hoping the sudden thunder of his heartbeat didn’t wake him up. Shoving his head away was out of the question. Big bad demon falling asleep to the sound of his heart. Making sure he was alive?

Sucking in a sudden breath, Grimmjow pulled his legs up slightly and sniffed in his sleep. A shadow passed over them both. Hands was swooping past, its blue fire dimmed to an almost invisible glow at the wrists. Ichigo waited for it to grab him or do something violent. Instead, it hesitated over Grimmjow, fingers splayed out. With a single giant fingertip it touched his bare back, just drawing a line down it. Then, another.

It was petting him. As lightly and carefully as if he were a baby mouse. Sensing the touch, Grimmjow grunted in his sleep and turned his entire face into Ichigo’s chest, blue-tipped horns and all. Hands again turned to smoke and vanished.

Feeling like he’d seen something he shouldn’t have, sad in ways he couldn’t explain, Ichigo stayed where he was and closed his eyes. It was just a bit of discomfort.

He’d borne heavier weights than Grimmjow’s sleeping head.

* * *

“You could just point me in the right direction, you know,” Ichigo said, jumping over a fallen log. He landed in a patch of mushrooms growing out of the wet earth around the base. Grimmjow pulled one off the ground and ate it. “I’ve been to Rukia’s before. I don’t need an escort.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not sticking around once you get there.” Grimmjow didn’t say anything else on the matter, casting a familiar narrow-eyed look around the thin dirt path that led through the trees. “S’just better to stay off the paved roads. Weird ghosts and stuff like to hang around in the trees near them.”

“I didn’t sign on for any ghosts,” Ichigo said uneasily. Ghosts in the living world were one thing, but actual scary ghosts could get absolutely fucked. Plus he was powerless if one did appear. Shuffling closer to Grimmjow, craning his neck around to look through the trees, he buttoned his coat all the way up to his throat. Just in case.

“I said ghosts, not blood-drinkers,” Grimmjow snorted, unbuttoning the topmost toggle and pulling the necklace back out so it was on display. “Leave that visible when you travel around. It won’t do shit if something tries to eat you, but most tribes know what it is and will leave you alone.”

“Are we married now?” Ichigo asked, looking down at it. “I appreciate it, but I’d take the fur if I had a choice.” Snorting, he ducked the swiping hand that came for him and crossed around the other side of a tree.

“You have a creepy fixation on my shoulder pelt. Keep your oily face away from it.”

“That’s not a no.” His face wasn’t oily, anyway. Grimmjow had watched him moisturise with great fascination after washing himself that morning. Ichigo had tried to demonstrate it on his hand but he’d practically reared away in horror. It seemed like there was a lot about Ichigo and the human world that he was curious about, judging from the way he’d been going through his bag the night before, but that didn’t mean he wanted to jump in headfirst and start a skin care regime. Not that Ichigo had one.

The stuff that happened the night before hadn’t been mentioned. By the time the fire had gone cold and Ichigo had opened his eyes in the bluish light of Hands’ power, Grimmjow had already gone to find them breakfast. After a simple, filling meal of fish and speckled eggs that Ichigo absolutely wasn’t going to ask the origins of, he’d washed up in his trusty bucket and pulled on his clothes. The coat was still a little damp around the edges but it was nothing that wouldn’t dry in the sunlight.

“You just want to go see the tengu woman for a visit?” Grimmjow had said sceptically, and if Ichigo indulged himself, a little worriedly. “They’re not dangerous unless you piss on their traditions or try to steal their shit. I guess it’s safe enough.”

“Right,” Ichigo had replied, squinting suspiciously at the pale blue feathers dangling from Grimmjow’s cuffed ears. “Well, I just want to talk to Rukia again. You know, so I’m not being rude.”

“You’re gonna tell her about Aizen.” The words were flat. “She won’t believe you. None of them will. And even if they did, if it doesn’t affect them they don’t give a shit.” Grabbing up his bag, Grimmjow had tossed it over to Ichigo with a shuttered look. He hadn’t quite met his eyes. “C’mon then. I’ll take you.”

“Okay.” Ichigo had carefully put his bag back down by his feet, making sure Grimmjow watched him do it. “But I won’t need to take this.” Some of the tension seemed to release from his shoulders, but he still seemed out of sorts as they left the mountain. Probably because they were leaving the mountain. Ichigo would bet Grimmjow hadn’t done it in the last three years.

The rest of their trek to the compound was pretty, if a little quiet. Ichigo had been right; the place was still caught in a strange purple twilight, just smatterings of stars dotting the sky and an occasional streak of pale cloud. It made the autumn-coloured maple trees and sakura everywhere look vibrant in contrast. There wasn’t a lot of underbrush around, mostly fertile black soil and thick, short green grass. The whole place was like a decorative, well-maintained grove that went on for miles. In the distance, shrines with swooped wooden roofs peeked out of the treetops on the hills. One of those belonged to Gin. The west shrine? East?

“It’s nice here,” Ichigo said at one point, just to test the silence. “Did you take in the scenery last time when you chased Gin down through the forest?”

“Not really. Seen it all. Gets boring after a while.”

“You never answered me last time, you know.”

A quick blue glance. “About what?”

“The gem he stole. Did you ever get it back? The last I saw of you three years ago, you were running him down after he bolted with it.” Ichigo still remembered it clearly; a large chunk of faceted orange that glowed like a warm coal.

“I had the fox cornered when he tried to use it against me. I cracked it right down the middle.” Grimmjow’s mouth tightened into a fierce line. “It’s useless now.”

“Oh. Damn.”

“Yeah.”

That killed all conversation for the rest of the walk. Ichigo felt a little like apologising. He’d never intended for Grimmjow to lose one of his gems, especially not once they realised that Gin had been lying about being able to use its power to send Kon and himself home. It was a shame it had been broken. But maybe a destroyed gem was better than one that could eventually make its way into Aizen’s hands. Hopefully Grimmjow saw it that way. After all, he could make replacements whenever he wanted.

The high stone walls of the tengu estate almost crept up on them, so suddenly it appeared through the trees. Pale grey stone was carved with swirling patterns that looked like gusts of wind, interlaced with the faint outline of what Ichigo thought might be ravens. It was all really elegant and absolutely nothing like Byakuya or Rukia’s artwork, so they had to be old as hell. Grimmjow tensed up with every step they took toward the main wooden gates, which were open and hung with paper lanterns. The moat-like streams that crossed in front of it were dotted with other, smaller lanterns lit by candles. The water didn’t move, but nothing smelled stagnant. It just looked nice. And…kind of abandoned. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

“I’m not welcome inside the walls of any other tribe stronghold,” Grimmjow said, twisting the gold ring on the base of one horn. “So I’ll leave you here. Come out the same way you go in and I’ll find you again later.” He turned swiftly on one strapped heel and started walking away without another word, shoulders hunched like something was harassing him.

“Jeez, no kiss goodbye?” Ichigo said, somewhere between annoyed and amused. “This is actually a good chance to speak to Rukia and tell her to stop leaving you fruit, you know.”

“Tell her yourself.” The words were tossed over his shoulder. Grimmjow really wanted out of there.

Ichigo was so focused on his rapidly retreating back that the rustle behind him didn’t make sense until a malformed hand grabbed his arm with supernatural force.

“Whoa! Hey, hands off!” He swiped at the thing with his free hand, where it bent back to avoid the strike. “What’s—oh, gross.”

“How dare you speak to me so!” barked a green, cloud-shaped creature from Ichigo’s worst nightmares. Byakuya’s little servant guy, Doctor Lettuce or something. “No humans are permitted in the Spirit Society! Come with me at once!” It yanked on his sleeve so hard the seams squeaked.

“Quit grabbing at me!” Ichigo wrenched his shoulders around, popping all the buttons on his coat and shrugging out of it. It left the creepy thing holding nothing but damp fabric in irritation. “Try that again, you little green asshole. I dare you.”

“How dare I?” it gasped, short arms waving wildly. The coat hit the ground. “How dare you! Insolence! Such back-talk from a rodent! This will not stand in the great house of the teng—ooh!” The last syllable choked off as he abruptly flew backwards through the open gates of the compound, bouncing a few times from the momentum.

Human and powerless Ichigo might be, but he still wasn’t taking shit from something he was pretty sure had a three-flavour cookie range for sale back in Soul Society. Besides, roundhouse kicking a servant probably wasn’t a crime. Weren’t they just magical imaginary friends? Or maybe they were like zanpakutou, but really lame. He was thinking it over in such depth that he stiffened when his coat was dropped back around his shoulders. Grimmjow was back beside him, staring at the whole scene with wide eyes.

“You just kicked the shit out of that leaf.”

“Yeah.”

“I remember that kick,” Grimmjow said, grinning suddenly. It made his fangs stand out. “Three years ago. You almost got me with it. You had some decent moves, for a human.” A blue-black arm swung up around Ichigo’s shoulders, giving him that weird headlock-hug again. It pushed the fur up against the back of his head like a pillow. Ignoring the jibe and turning to the side, Ichigo put his cheek into it. Grimmjow didn’t even freak out about it that time, just screwed up his nose and shook his head.

Ichigo was still looking at him with goofy, smiling eyes when someone cried out in surprise, and the sound of weird little stuffed feet padded their way over the stones toward them. And just like that, the moment shattered.

“Ahhh!!” Kon screeched, pointing at them both. “You beat the shit out of Ambassador Seaweed! You knocked the green out of him! He’s bleeding iodine!” Despite all his concerned accusations he jumped right over the unconscious servant and came barrelling at them.

Grimmjow took one look at Kon’s boisterous disapproval and freaked out like a cat with its tail stepped on, bristling all over with aggression.

“You,” he growled—and took a long step backward, leaving Ichigo standing there alone. “Stay the hell away from me!”

“Don’t flatter yourself!” Kon shouted back with absolutely zero volume control. “And stop assaulting delicious servants!”

“I didn’t!” Grimmjow was even further away by then. “He did it!”

“Don’t rat me out!” Ichigo yelled at him.

“Everyone shut up!” Rukia bellowed from the gate in a voice three times her size. Then the world got really windy and terrifying for a few seconds. With one swing of her delicate fan, Ichigo was blown upside-down into the trees in a flurry of red leaves with a really unimpressed Grimmjow suffering a screeching Kon stuck to his chest. Most upsettingly, Ichigo’s coat blew away. Great.

At least she hadn’t blown them too far, so Hands just grabbed them out of the air before they hit, spinning them all right way up and dropping them on the edge of the tree line. Ichigo glared over the bridge they’d just cleared and gave her tiny, feathery noble self the finger.

“Nice welcome!” he yelled, grabbing Grimmjow’s hand before he could bolt. Kon, always dedicated to self-preservation, had hopped across to Ichigo’s shoulder. “Three years and this is the hello I get?” His arm was almost pulled out of its socket as Grimmjow tried to get free, but unless he wanted to break Ichigo’s arm it wasn’t happening. With cheerful determination, he dragged the freaked out demon behind him and over the bridge back to the tengu gates.

Rukia looked less than pleased to see him. She also looked every bit the same as she had last time, though maybe the colour of her kimono had changed. Her wings were glossy black and blue-green, tucked down neatly around her shoulders like a living shawl. Her expression of pure irritation wasn’t new at all.

“I knew you’d show yourself eventually!” she said hotly as they approached. Her eyes scanned Grimmjow’s rigid form and lingered for a moment, flicking back to Ichigo with vast disapproval. “Can’t you read? I went to all the trouble of leaving you a very specific note on the crossing so you’d know you weren’t welcome back here!”

“You mean that shitty rabbit picture?” Ichigo teased. Grimmjow’s hand flexed in his, and he squeezed back without looking. “If you wanted to stop me you should have busted the bridge completely. Besides, I’m here to see Grimmjow, and he’s totally delighted to see me.” Slight exaggeration, but Rukia would be none the wiser. She crossed her arms neatly, red-tipped nails disappearing into her sleeves. Her smile was smug.

“If he’s so happy to see you, where is he?”

“What?” Ichigo looked down at his hand. He was gripping one of Hands’ fingertips. Across the bridge and tearing through the place like a madman, Grimmjow had just absolutely ditched his ass in tengu country. “You motherfucker! Come back and tell her about the fruit!”

“Fuck the fruit!” came the distant voice of an absolute bastard. Was it the bird thing? Kon? Just being outside his cave? Flushed and mad about it, Ichigo chased Hands away until it turned to blue smoke, its light vanishing between the trees. When he glowered back at Rukia, he was surprised to see she was as red-cheeked as he felt.

“Fuck the fruit?” she repeated, profanity sounding strange coming from such a delicate, doll-like version of the pint-sized maniac he knew so well back home. “I went to great effort to procure that fruit from the kitchens! I even took nii-sama’s pomegranates and pretended the kitchen staff must have dropped them on the way in. Those were really nutritious selections. Damn demons, they have no taste at all.” Slipping her fan back onto the small hook at her waist, she held her hands out to Kon, who eagerly abandoned Ichigo’s shoulder to…dive into her bosom. “Come now, Kon. Nii-sama must be missing you. What actually happened to Ambassador Seaweed? He looks kind of tender around the middle.”

“Grimmjow tried to eat him,” Ichigo said, with no remorse whatsoever. “But I don’t think he likes vegetables much. Why is Byakuya missing Kon? Why are you hugging him like that?”

Kon gave him a beady-eyed look of slightly sheepish glee. “Oh you should come inside, Ichigo. A lot happened since yesterday afternoon.”

“It seems much has happened with you also,” Rukia said slowly, her eyes on the necklace sitting outside Ichigo’s t-shirt. “If you’re under the protection of a demon, I suppose it would be an insult to him to blast you back into your world.” Her deep blue eyes brightened suddenly. “And it also means I can’t be punished for showing you hospitality! The tengu want no quarrel with anybody. Nii-sama forbids anything so uncouth as senseless battle.”

“Oh god, right,” Ichigo groaned, following her and she gestured into the compound. Like Kon had before her, she daintily stepped over the slumped form of Byakuya’s familiar. “He’s still worried about his image at this point. Let me guess, you’re not real close?”

“Nii-sama is an incredibly powerful and busy man. He has much to do and little time for frivolities.” Rukia turned her nose to the sky. Over her shoulder, Kon was shaking a loose paw in a jerking off motion. Ichigo snorted despite himself. He really needed to know the full story. “Come on, I’ll arrange for tea, I suppose. Will Grimmjow be returning?”

“I’m not even sure he’s on the same continent anymore.”

“That’s unfortunate. I wanted to thank him for his assistance in person.” Her glossy wings fluttered a little, spreading out and settling back into place. The colours of them seemed to shift depending on the way the light from the hanging lanterns hit them. “Has he hurt you? Mistreated you? Are you being fed?”

Again with the damn pet talk. Did everyone look down on humans in the Spirit Society? Maybe he owed Grimmjow an apology.

“Yeah, Ichigo, did he scratch you behind the ears yet?” Kon looked as smug as a knock-off stuffed lion possibly could.

“Yeah, I’m due for another one in a few hours.” Irritated and unwilling to give either of them the satisfaction of knowing it, Ichigo made a good show of studying the carved wooden eaves and painted rooftops surrounding the main courtyard of the compound. Like everything else, it was perfectly maintained: simple, single-level buildings boasting long polished porches of wood and paper screen doors stretched on either side of them, delicate orange and white lanterns giving them a golden honour guard as they walked up the wide path. A huge triple-storey main house loomed up ahead, clearly occupied by the head of the clan and his household. It seemed a lot like the real Kuchiki estate in some ways. Pretty, but sort of empty with nobody much around. It didn’t look like the kind of place where anyone ever had fun.

It didn’t get any better inside. Despite all the lights hanging everywhere, candles in every corner, it seemed dark and gloomy with glossy floors that rolled on forever. Strange ornaments sat on tables and lacquered cabinets by the walls, some of them glowing with what was probably magic. Rukia clucked slightly when he hesitated to look at everything, leading them into a spacious room with a roaring fireplace set in a rough-carved stone hearth. Above it, spread and pinned into place on the wall was an enormous set of black wings. Actual wings, like they’d been cut off a giant bird’s back.

Or a tengu’s.

“You people really like your ancestral body parts,” Ichigo said, walking up to stare at it. The heat from the fireplace made it impossible to get too close. “Is this your great grandfather or something?”

“Nii-sama’s ancestor,” Rukia revealed, an odd catch in her tone. “These great wings both empower and shelter us from all that may bring our house harm.” Pulling out her fan, she spread it open wide. “The feathers in my fan were plucked from them when I came into my power. They changed colour once they were taken, showing their acceptance of me into the clan. Nii-sama praised me that day.” Her smile was tiny, but immensely proud.

“Boring,” Kon yawned obnoxiously, launching across to Ichigo again. “Nee-san, your brother complex has to stop! It’s unhealthy when there’s so many other eligible males in your life. Well, just one really, and you’re looking at him.” Kon flourished into a bow from behind Ichigo’s arm. “At your service.”

“Technically you’re at my brother’s service,” Rukia said, snapping her fan closed in a way that reminded Ichigo so much of Urahara it gave him the creeps. “And I’m looking at two eligible males, aren’t I? Not that I would ever, in a thousand years, consider either of you.”

“That’s rude!” Kon said, cradled in Ichigo’s arms like an infant by that point. “Besides, Ichigo is currently being extremely gay for that dumb demon that just sprinted in the other direction. Total lost cause.”

Rukia’s wings shivered in surprise. “You’re in love with the demon?” she gasped. Strangely, her cheeks pinked. “That’s heresy of the highest order. Demons of any clan are widely considered to be selfish, bloodthirsty and show tendencies toward the insane. They hate everything that isn’t like them, and their gems are said to be powerful enough to injure even a tengu. They’re extremely dangerous.” Ichigo had heard really differently about the damage level of those gems, but just then that was beside the point.

“I’m not in love with him!” he said loudly. “Quit being so romantic! I just—”

“Want him to take your pants off?” Kon supplied with pseudo-helpfulness. Ichigo’s hackles came up.

“Grimmjow already did that.” It was worth it to see Kon’s eyes bug out. “Which reminds me, how’s your feather adventure coming along?”

“It’s fine!” Kon blurted, darting Rukia panicked looks. “Stop asking! You pervert!”

“Oh, I’m the pervert, mister take off my pants?”

“Of course! I’m a dickless saint, how the hell could I possibly have a single impure thought?” Kon said, forever martyred and straight-up lying to the audience. Meanwhile, Rukia’s eyes were swinging between them like a spectator at a tennis match. “Shut up about your exploits. Its crass to kiss and tell. Nee-san, take me away from all this.” He held his paws up to her like a grotesque changeling trying to convince a new mother. Rukia shook her head swiftly and took a quick step back. Served the little asshole right.

“I must inform my brother that Ichigo is here and under what circumstances he must be allowed to remain. If Ambassador Seaweed returns before then it’s likely to be carnage.” Grabbing Ichigo’s arm, she all but dragged him over to a low table and shoved him down to his knees by it. “Wait here, both of you.” She bent toward Ichigo until they were nose to nose, her eyes stern. “Whatever you do, don’t break anything while I’m gone. Or touch anything. Just—don’t do anything.” With a tight whirl of white fabric and flaring sleeves, she headed immediately for a door on the other side of the room. Kon watched her go with mournful eyes.

Once the door clicked shut, Ichigo threw Kon across the entire length of the hall, where he executed a perfect mid-air flip and landed on his feet like a professional gymnast.

“What the hell is going on here?” Ichigo bit out, trying to keep his voice down. He felt like yelling again. “Are you Byakuya’s pet? Why is Rukia acting like there’s an entire tree stuck up her ass? And what’s this shit about demons being crazy? What have you been telling her?”

“Nothing!” Kon yelped, bolting back toward him. “I didn’t tell her anything about that Grimmjow! Except that you probably wanted to ride him like a wild bull. Is the truth so painful?” When he came launching back up toward his face, Ichigo was tempted to side-step his leap and let him dive right into the fire instead. Instead, he caught Kon by his stuffed waist and squeezed with both hands. “Ah, you’re gonna kill me! My pill’s coming out!”

“Then start talking.”

“Fine, fine! Shut up and listen. It all started when I jumped the wall into the estate and found Byakuya talking to a lump of metal.”

What followed was a short, bizarre tale that could have only happened to something like Kon. After breaking into the tengu compound in the hopes of finding Rukia glowing with love and sexual interest in him, he’d instead fallen into Byakuya’s private garden and found him talking seriously to a metal ball. The ball didn’t answer back, but Kon did. He’d cracked up laughing in the bushes. Byakuya had been so embarrassed he’d threatened to kill Kon for witnessing his conversation, or whatever it was. Kon, being an absolute bastard, threatened him right back by saying he had a telepathic bond with Rukia forged by their eternal love and was going to give up the information unless he was allowed to stay for as long as he wanted.

“He doesn’t have any idea what nee-san is like or what she does,” Kon explained when Ichigo called bullshit on that part of the story. “They barely know each other. She told me yesterday that she hasn’t seen him in the flesh in the last two weeks, and he’s _in this house_. They’re weird as hell! Anyway, bird-features himself said I could stay here as long as I didn’t tell anyone about what I saw.” Kon scratched his chin. “His pride seems really important to him.”

“Oh, tell me about it,” Ichigo replied, sitting his ass on the floor and staring at his sneakers. “So you just live here now as his little servant?”

“No!” Kon laughed. “That’s the best part: once he figured out I wasn’t someone’s familiar he decided I had some kind of worldly wisdom to share, so now I’m his new…metal thing to talk to. I think he might be almost as much of a hermit as your blue demon. What is that guy, anyway? An oni?”

“Descended from one,” Ichigo said absently, already thinking far ahead. “Kon, you remember last time we came here, and how Gin tricked us into getting him that gem from Grimmjow? I think I know why he wanted it.”

“Let me guess, there’s some horrible plot brewing?”

Ichigo’s gaze sharpened. “How’d you know?”

“Because there’s always some horrible plot brewing!” Kon said in exasperation. “The last six years of our lives has been one big horrible brewing plot! Why should it change now?”

“Our lives?”

“Yes, our lives. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in this together.” Sitting down with the groan of an old, tired man, Kon gave Ichigo a moody look. “I’m glad you got laid. One of us should be having an actual good time here.”

Right, a good time. If only he knew that the whole visit so far had spiralled out into a weird web of conspiracy, skeletons and giant blue demon hands. And a little bit of personal attention in the form of a hot spring bathing session. Figured Ichigo would be concussed for most of it. Maybe he could convince Grimmjow to take another one with him, just for fun this time.

Ichigo was just deciding to unload the whole story of Grimmjow’s past onto Kon when the door Rukia had stepped through snapped open and she came hurrying out. Her expression was tight and closed as she bent down and yanked Ichigo up onto his feet again, brushing him down for lint and wrinkles in his clothes.

“You will behave, and you will be respectful,” she said in short, hushed bursts of sound, licking her fingers and smoothing down a few of his more unruly spikes of hair. “Kon, say nothing during his audience. Nii-sama wishes to take the measure of Ichigo without outside influence.” Taking the toothed necklace by its woven strands, she turned it until the heavy black gem was in the centre of his chest. She buffed it with her sleeve a few times. “You look rough, but this will have to do. Go through that door and kneel where the zabuton rests. Let him speak first.”

“You sound like you’re about to freak out,” Ichigo complained, rubbing at his hair. She slapped his hand with her fan until he lowered it. Her face, previously in serious, almost bleak lines of duty and boredom and all that shit he thought he’d beaten out of his world’s Rukia, was now pinched and pale with alarm. Byakuya must be terrifying, he thought, a little spooked by that. “Don’t worry. I promise I won’t make life hard for you. Are you going in too? There’s something I need to talk to you both about.”

“I’ll follow you in, but I’ll be sitting at his left and I’m not permitted to speak.”

“He really is in his asshole phase, huh?” A small, star-like hand slapped his cheek firmly. “Ow!”

“Cut that kind of talk out! Nii-sama has no love for demons, and you’re under the protection of one. That may not extend so far if you anger him.” Starting to turn him toward the door and push, she suddenly dug her fingers into his t-shirt. “One more thing: don’t tell him about your last visit.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t. He has no idea I was taken prisoner by Gin, however briefly. It’s just better that way.”

Great. Against his will, the feeling of tension spread across his shoulders and into his stomach, setting his whole torso like cement. He did look like ass compared to the mansion he was standing in. Compared to Rukia.

The room belonging to Byakuya was curiously bare of any real personal effects. There were scrolls everywhere in perfect alignment on the shelves that lined the walls, some looking so old and brittle they’d probably fall apart if someone breathed on them too hard. The outside shoji screens were all thrown open, revealing a beautiful garden that framed a shining pond. More lanterns floated on its surface and hung from the white sakura tree that arched over it. Inside, at the other end of the long room, a low desk sat with a potted feather quill rising from it like the flag of a ship. It was a deep green, almost black. It in no way matched the winged man folded in perfect seiza behind the desk, his eyes and his expression closed as Ichigo sat his ass on the cushion and crossed his legs. Let Rukia make all the faces she wanted; he wasn’t a pretzel. Kon bounded down next to Rukia and sat himself down, short plush legs stuck out in front. Ichigo found himself holding his breath a little.

Byakuya looked…different. Different like Rukia had, and different like he wasn’t even the same person. Oh, he still had the dark hair and pale, severe features, but where his white kenseikan used to be woven into his hair, there was a row of pale blue feathers worked into the intricate strands. They curved and spilled down his back on one side where the hair was braided tight. A pale marking like a blue fork was stamped in the centre of his forehead like a diadem, shining between two very short horns. But it was the wings that freaked Ichigo out the most: unlike Rukia, Byakuya’s were so big they bent and pooled on the tatami around him like skirts. Raven-black and glossy, they had pale blue flight feathers that fell around his dark blue haori. It would have all been really noble and beautiful looking, if he hadn’t rested his hands on the desk at that exact moment to show long black talons where his nails should have been.

Great. Even tengu had their strong leaders. Ichigo should have known to expect something other than a canary.

After a small silence that stretched for eons, Byakuya finally opened his eyes. Ichigo had a brief, small snap of relief that they were still the same colour.

“Nii-sama, this is Kurosaki Ichigo, the human I spoke of.” Rukia was gesturing with a demurely lowered head. What was this bizarre shit?! Was this how she’d been— “Kurosaki-san, you sit in the presence of the greatest tengu lord of our time, Kuchiki Byakuya.”

“Hi,” Ichigo said through clenched teeth, hating the whole vibe. It was just _Byakuya_. “Sorry to barge in. You can just call me Ichigo.” An outraged dark blue glance cut his way, and he realised he’d fucked up already. He was supposed to let Byakuya speak first. “Uh.”

“Kurosaki Ichigo,” Byakuya said slowly, tasting the sound. “A forgettable name. Make no mistake, human; your audience with me today is for one reason only. Tell me how you came by that demonic jewel around your neck.”

“It’s on loan from a friend.” The words had more bite than intended. Of course everyone in the Spirit Society looked down on humans. “I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It is, for I can think of no reason why a demon would give a human anything,” Byakuya replied. “Other than a swift and painful death. Their kind are—”

“When’s the last time you actually spoke with any of their kind?” Ichigo interrupted. He didn’t look in Rukia’s direction this time. “More than a hundred years ago, wasn’t it? At the very least. There’s more to them what what you can read in these scrolls. Or is this your memoirs? Day ten thousand and seven: still a stuffy, boring assh—”

A black-feathered fan beside the desk that Ichigo hadn’t noticed unfurled with a crack, and he spent the next ten seconds of his life stuck to the ceiling by the force of a hurricane wind. It was a miracle the room was sturdy enough to withstand it, especially since Ichigo felt like his entire face was about to punch through the other side of his skull. When the wind abated and he hit the floor, scrolls rained down around them. Squinting through the effort of trying to get a proper breath, he saw the pretty desk on the other side of the room. Rukia and Kon were plastered to the wall in shock.

Well, might as well go all in. Ichigo pushed himself to his feet and straightened his necklace.

If Byakuya had been a little intimidating before, he was sort of terrifying standing up with his wings spread. Huge and black, the layer of pale blue that made up the longest feathers did nothing to soften the impression Ichigo was going to have his liver pecked out somehow. His steel blue eyes were cold as he lifted the fan again.

“Nii-sama, don’t!” Rukia threw herself between them again, falling a little in her haste. With her arms and wings spread like a shield, she ducked her head as if expecting a blow. But she didn’t move. “He didn’t mean it!”

“He’s no better than refuse, just like the demon who sent him. Get out of the way.”

“I won’t!” Finally her head lifted, but Ichigo couldn’t see her face. “He’s rude and mouthy and he’s not our kind, but he’s my friend and I can’t let you hurt him.” Her voice shook, but her spine was ramrod stiff. In front of her, Byakuya looked unmoved. The deja vu of it all was terrible. “Please, nii-sama. He’s just a foolish human. There’s no need to go to all this trouble.”

“Rukia,” Ichigo said quietly, hurting all over again. The profile she gave him was bitten-down and rigid, but there was no way she wasn’t scared. The best part about her was that in any universe, she was his fiercest and dearest friend. Even in the face of her crazy fucking older brother. God, Ichigo had forgotten what a dick he could be. Well, he could be a dick right back.

“Please, nii-sama,” Rukia said again, and Byakuya’s jaw twitched. The only way to move her was to use the fan or physically shove her, and Ichigo could see him weighing his options. He took that moment to step around Rukia’s spread wings and spot Kon, who was still half-buried in a small mountain of scrolls. He turned back to Byakuya.

“I don’t remember you getting angry this quickly in my world. You’re kind of a slow burn type, but I guess you were always a snob.” Dusting himself off, he smoothed down his hair again in the places Rukia had touched before. “I never knew her, but I’m pretty sure Hisana-san would spit in your eye if she knew you’d hurt Rukia. So maybe we should just skip over that part.”

The clack of the fan hitting the floor wasn’t unexpected, but it gave him a fierce, quiet satisfaction to see the colour drain entirely from Kuchiki Byakuya’s face. Less satisfying was the look of confusion on Rukia’s, and then he knew he had some explaining to do.

“Maybe we should all sit back down,” Ichigo suggested, keeping his voice calm in hopes he wasn’t about to be blown into next year again. “There’s a lot everyone needs to know.”

“How do you know that name?” Byakuya actually looked a little wobbly. “Nobody has spoken that name in decades. I made sure of it.” There was something odd about the way he said that, but it was more important that his mask had cracked. He was finally looking at Ichigo and not through him. “Human—Kurosaki Ichigo, what knowledge do you have of my family?”

Rukia, Byakuya and Kon were all staring at him by that point. Refusing to shrink under the scrutiny, Ichigo wondered exactly how to explain what he knew without revealing things out of order. Was this kind of like a pseudo-time travel scenario? Would revealing secrets somehow ruin things there? In his world, Byakuya had told Rukia himself. If Ichigo interfered there they might remain estranged forever. That meant he had a hard choice to make, and one that he knew he was going to pay for.

“Let’s speak in private,” Ichigo told Byakuya, keeping his gaze unflinching as Rukia stiffened in hurt surprise. “There’s some things you should hear alone.”

“Agreed,” Byakuya said slowly, his brows lowering. “Rukia, Kon, leave us.”

“But—” Rukia cut herself off almost instantly, but not before she earned a glare from the master of the household. “I believe I should be present for these proceedings.” The discomfort in her tone was plain, as plain as her stubbornness.

“And why would you think such a thing?” Byakuya asked her, and Ichigo silently begged for forgiveness. Since Rukia had never told Byakuya about his last visit, she was hog-tied now unless she wanted to tell the truth and admit she’d been keeping secrets.

Cheeks flushing crimson, jaw set and eyes on the floor, Rukia gave a short bow.

“Forgive my outburst. Kon, with me.”

“But—”

"_With me._" Kon practically teleported into her arms. His eyes were mournful over her shoulder as they left the private study.

When the door shut with a single, quiet click that betrayed none of Rukia’s fury over being ejected from the room, Ichigo let out a breath that felt like it had come from his ankles. Opposite him, Byakuya’s mouth was a tense line of slowly rekindling anger.

“Speak. Now.”

Ichigo swallowed. “First of all, I don’t know if you could say the things I know are about your family, specifically. Some things are the same. Others are all messed up. But if Rukia is here with you, that means you married Hisana-san and she’s already passed away from illness.”

“I did not ask what you know. I asked how you came to know it.” Reaching down in a fluid motion, Byakuya picked his fan up from the floor. The devastation of the orderly room said he didn’t give a shit if he had to use it again. “Speak, human, before I lose my patience.”

“Aren’t you gonna order me some tea first?” Ichigo asked, stepping around one half-folded wing and walking out onto the deck that overlooked the pond. “Or sake. I have no idea what time it is, but sake seems like a great idea. You’re going to hate what I have to say, I can tell that already.”

Giving him a long, steel-grey look of curiously quenched annoyance, Byakuya clicked his fingers delicately. Ambassador Seaweed appeared in a puff of smoke, wheezing and gripping his leafy stomach. Byakuya blinked.

“What happened?”

“Some rabid human wearing a demon’s gem accosted me by the gates!” Seaweed said angrily, his back to Ichigo. “I should like very much to kill that wobbling strip of pale flesh.”

Byakuya closed his eyes briefly. “Bring me sake out onto the engawa. When you return, say nothing and leave swiftly.”

“At once, Kuchiki-sama.” Green smoke enveloped the creature as he vanished. Byakuya’s shoulders dropped slightly in an almost imperceptible sigh, one anyone would have missed if Ichigo hadn’t seen it on another man in another world—usually caused by him those times, too.

“In my defence, he was getting kinda grabby. I lost my coat, too.” Which sucked, hard. Not because he liked it that much, but because he didn’t have any other cold weather clothing and the air was pretty crisp. Since Grimmjow wasn’t inclined to let him touch the fur much, maybe his punishment for meddling in everything was just to freeze while he was there. Following Byakuya’s lead, he walked to the end of the veranda where a wood-panelled wall was blocking any cool breeze, and sat on one of the scattered zabuton there. Those ones were woven out of some thick, sturdy fiber and stuffed with something springy. The scene felt kind of casual, but damned if Ichigo was letting his guard down after being stuck to the ceiling before. Tengu or not, the guy was still a bit trigger-happy. Ichigo pretended he was right at home and looked out at the water with its floating lanterns and sakura petals.

“I’m not sure where to start, so I guess I’ll tell you everything and you can decide for yourself. But at the end of all this, I need to ask a huge favour of you.” Ichigo waited for Byakuya to glare at him stonily before he held out his hand. “Sorry, but knowledge comes at a cost.”

“I’m tempted to discard my curiosity and have you thrown into the river with your legs tied to a large, heavy rock.”

“That’s an option. I sure couldn’t fight you if you did.” Ichigo reached up and touched the black gem around his neck. Byakuya’s eyes followed the movement with cold displeasure. “What are the laws here if you drown the guest of a demon?”

“Laws.” Byakuya huffed a small, almost inaudible breath. “Demons hold no faith with our laws. They refused them centuries ago and seceded from the Spirit Society. It’s why our agreement extends only to avoiding each other at all costs. Savage, hateful, bloodthirsty killers, one and all.” He pointed a black-taloned finger at the gem. “Why were you given that? Tell me what power it holds.”

“This? It’s a healing gem. Nothing to get excited about. Grimmjow gave it to me to wear as proof that he’s my…sponsor? Landlord?”

“Protector.” The word sounded like it had soured in Byakuya’s mouth. His eyes were drilling holes in the gem. “Demons can harness healing magic?”

“At least one of them could.” All too late Ichigo thought of Hisana, and the rot that had set into her lungs and killed her. “Sorry for your loss, Byakuya.” He ignored the cold look his informality earned. “See, uh…in my world, the people of the Spirit Society also exist. But they’re not youkai, the way they are here. They’re shinigami and hollows, and they belong to the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo. You can probably guess which one belongs to the people like you and which one belongs to the demons who live here.” When Byakuya just set his jaw and waited, Ichigo figured there was nothing left but to dive right in. If there was no open-minded Urahara, no fiercely daring Yoruichi to tell this to, Byakuya was the only other option with enough power to change things. Maybe. Even a Kenpachi in his corner would help. Or…destroy everything. Yeah. It had to be Byakuya.

Before Ichigo could speak, Seaweed puffed back into existence with a large tokkuri of sake and a set of dishes. He took one look at Ichigo and turned a dull, unhealthy grey, but he was as good as his word and said nothing as he set the small table and left, and for that Ichigo didn’t trip him at the ankle as he waddled away.

“Here’s to upsetting the natural order,” Ichigo said as he lifted the shallow dish Byakuya poured him. He knocked back the entire thing pretty fast for what felt like ten in the morning, give or take an hour.

Telling the story of his life from the moment he met Rukia to the time he defeated Aizen took a while, even when he tried to cut it right back to the facts only. The moment he’d mentioned Aizen’s name Ichigo had searched for a reaction, but Byakuya gave nothing other than the blank mirror of his doll-like noble mask in return. Hisana was his only weak spot, clearly. Aizen rated as less than nothing on his list of important people. So Ichigo talked and drank and talked some more, until he felt like his throat was turning to scratchy sandpaper and the pond was tilting in strange directions. But he said it, and he said everything he could think of. Rukia’s friendship with him, Byakuya’s rigid adherence to corrupted laws and what they’d cost, the manipulation of all the captains, Aizen’s betrayal. The arrancar, the hougyoku, the war. Everything.

When he finally finished, feeling a little wrung out and strange, Byakuya finally drank deep from his own sake dish.

“A colourful tale,” he said. To Ichigo’s dismay, his tone registered only disinterest. “With groundless concern that these atrocities will be repeated here. This land is peaceful. It will remain so.”

“But Aizen—”

“The ryuujin hasn’t been seen or heard from in over ninety years,” Byakuya interrupted smoothly. “The tribes keep to themselves and manage the clans beneath them. The demons are the only true threat, and they too have been quiet for almost a century.”

“That’s because Aizen killed them all!” Ichigo cried. He poured his own sake that time. “They’re all dead, Byakuya, because they wouldn’t give Aizen the power he wanted to fuel his stupid dragon jewel. I’ve seen the bones of all the bodies he left behind.” He took a quick gulp. “They died like they didn’t even see it coming. Some of those people were my friends in my world.”

Byakuya stared at him. The fork-like sigil in the centre of his forehead seemed to stand out a little more.

“Are you saying the demons have been defeated by a single clan?”

“No. I’m saying they were massacred by one man.”

“Impossible.” Byakuya cut a firm gesture with his hand, dismissing the statement. “I have no love for the demon clans but they’re no trifling rabble to be defeated on a whim. You’ve been deceived, human, and likely sent here to play decoy—”

“Grimmjow _isn't lying,_" Ichigo said with more force than he intended. Secondhand offence made his blood feel hot in his veins. “And he didn’t want me to come. He said that even if you heard me out you either wouldn’t believe me or you wouldn’t give a damn, and fuck it, he was right.” Pushing himself to his feet in wobbly, jerking movements, Ichigo glared down at Byakuya’s stupid impassive face and felt like punching it in. “In my world, you had to almost die before you’d get your head out of your ass and see what was really going on. Remember that when you’re bleeding out and Aizen’s got exactly what he wants.”

Jumping down off the polished deck, Ichigo stomped through the garden looking for a way around the side of the building. Screw going through that creepy haunted house with its amputation trophies again. He quickly realised the garden was completely walled-in though, and had to come stomping right back where Byakuya was frowning into his sake dish.

Around them, the wind picked up, rustling the branches of the sakura tree hanging over the pond. The lanterns on the water shivered as a veil of pale petals flew free, swirling around Ichigo and up onto the deck where Byakuya sat. He looked up as the wind touched his clothes and hair, his wings twitching under the fragile onslaught. Ichigo was startled to see a harsh grief in his face as he lifted a clawed hand to the petal-laden breeze.

“I never could refuse you,” said Byakuya, so softly the wind almost carried the words away. “So be it.” He straightened his shoulders and turned to Ichigo, still standing in the garden bed with what was probably a dumb look on his face. “Kurosaki Ichigo, tell me one thing: what causes you to so strongly believe the events that occurred in your world will repeat in mine? Old battles and old death aside, I can think of no reason why you haven’t given me good news, instead of ill. The demon tribe was a plague among our world once. Why should I believe you when you say this peace will not last?”

Shit. Ichigo had the answer right in his hand, but Rukia had told him not to reveal it. One dick move was enough.

“A kitsune named Gin used me to trick Grimmjow into handing over a demon gem. In my world, Gin and Aizen were hand in glove the entire time, and if Gin knew Grimmjow had a gem, then Aizen must know he didn’t finish off the tribe.”

Byakuya was unmoved. “What do I care if one demon is killed? What do any of us care? No more than a demon would care if I were to be killed tonight.”

Ichigo felt like ripping his hair out. Go slow, he told himself, even though he wanted to just punch him in his stupid blue-pencilled eye. At least he was listening. “Aizen doesn’t want those gems around, unless he can have them. Doesn’t that mean they’re a threat to him somehow?”

“Perhaps. I don’t—”

“A threat to what, exactly? Don’t you think it’s weird Aizen is so worried about these gems that he committed near-genocide to get rid of them? Work with me, Byakuya: what can these gems do that—that tengu and kitsune and whatever else can’t?”

Byakuya’s eyes narrowed at Ichigo’s tone, his jaw jumping. Belatedly, Ichigo remembered this version of Byakuya had zero reason to trust or like him. Well, too late to do anything about it. Besides, yelling at Byakuya for being an idiot was kind of his forte, once.

“According to my ancestors’ scrolls,” Byakuya said slowly, “the demons are capable of creating gems that draw into them the power of all elements. Trapping it, they are able to stockpile staggering amounts of artillery capable of waging true war on the Spirit Society. However, most demons can only create no more than five to fifty gems in a lifetime before the drain on their lifeforce kills them.” A shadow passed over his face. “The dragon tribe cannot even produce one in ten lifetimes, but when they do, the power is said to be something touched by the old gods. A divine gift, meant for only one chosen to do great things.”

Ichigo swallowed. Aizen and his hougyoku, this time armed with what he believed was divine approval. Destiny, not rebellion. A king instead of a usurper. Fuck.

“If a dragon gem was capable of drawing not like…raw elements, but the power from demon gems, what the hell could it do?” Dashing up onto the engawa, Ichigo thumped back down on his cushion and leaned over the table. Byakuya was staring at the sakura petal floating in his sake dish like it could tell him what to do. “Byakuya! What could it do?”

“According to lore, demon gems are created by harnessing and amplifying the elements. Far more than any other youkai tribe can, though only used once.” The tengu lord’s voice was tight as he stared at Ichigo’s necklace, knowing it wasn’t close to the truth. “The facets in their gems heighten and magnify their power. If a dragon jewel were to work the same way, the power it possessed would increase ten, twenty, a hundredfold. Yet in my lifetime, not a single jewel has ever existed. There’s no telling what its purpose could be. Fuelled by that much refined magic from all of the elements, from fire to ice to healing to death itself—if the legends are all true and one demon remains who can still craft such things…they could be used to forge a weapon of incredible untold power.” A black-taloned hand curled slowly into a fist. “Aizen Sousuke was one of the first to suggest the demons could not be trusted, and should be segregated from our kind, out of sight and earshot. Driven underground, into their mountains and caves where my ravens would never see the atrocities he would commit.” He bared his teeth suddenly, his chin rising, and Ichigo saw his lips slowly blackening like ink was running beneath his skin. His eyes were cold steel. “Were it not so, I might have saved Hisana’s life. Might have traded for a gem like that.”

Slowly, like something ancient and tired finally waking up at last, Byakuya pushed himself to his feet and glared down at Ichigo, wings loose and as black as coal in the purple light. There was finally a spark of true life in his cold eyes.

“I will meet your demon,” Byakuya said, his voice ringing and deep, “but not alone. Today, I will send my ravens forth: loose them into the skies to find every youkai lord their eyes can see. The thirteen tribe leaders less one will convene, here, and you will tell your tale again before the entire Spirit Society.”

“You got it,” Ichigo said, following him to stand, a triumphant smile turning the corner of his mouth. “This time, we might end this before it ever begins. Aizen won’t know what the hell hit him.”

Byakuya’s face hadn’t lost its remoteness entirely, and it returned a little as he studied him.

“Make no mistake, Kurosaki Ichigo. This is not a declaration of war. But your words will be heard. Bring this demon, this Grimmjow, tomorrow and he shall be welcomed into my halls. But should he attack me or mine—”

“He won’t,” Ichigo said rapidly, with far more certainty than he felt. “I promise. For this, something this important? Grimmjow didn’t even expect to be believed, but if there’s a chance he can avenge the demons that Aizen murdered, I think I can convince him to come.” Maybe. “Even if he doesn’t, I don’t care. I’ll petition them all one by one until they have no choice but to believe me. You included, wind fetish guy.”

“Wind fet—” Byakuya started to repeat. His pale cheeks flushed. “Our dead flow to the wind, you ignorant human. Hisana’s spirit resides there, and has granted me much wisdom in the years since her passing. Mind your insolence, especially here. This was once her garden.”

“Oh.” Uncomfortable didn’t cover it. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect her.”

“Of course not.”

“No, really. She—” Ichigo searched for the right words. “I didn’t know her, but even back home she had this lasting echo over your family. Rukia especially, once she knew—”

“Rukia knows?” Byakuya looked a little wild. “In your world, she is aware of her sister’s…decision?”

“That she was abandoned as a baby?” Ichigo said frankly. “Yeah, she knows. Anyway, that’s not my business, so I’m shutting up about it. Do whatever you like, but don’t take her so lightly. Rukia is tougher than iron.”

Stepping around the table, Byakuya led him back through the doors into the ruined study. He looked at all the scrolls with sudden dismay, like he’d forgotten how they all got there. Ichigo tried not to snort. Yoruichi had always talked about the Kuchiki temper. It was good to see some things didn’t really change, even when a lot of other things had.

Ichigo didn’t see Kon or Rukia as he was led through the manor and out the main doors. He felt like shit about having her ejected from the meeting, but somehow it felt worse to have her find out about her sister when the information was being used as a weapon. Neither she or Byakuya deserved that, really. He wasn’t prepared to be that heavy-handed about any of it.

Standing outside the tengu gates, breathing the free and uncluttered air, Ichigo wondered for a moment if Grimmjow knew about the political bullshit of the other tribes and enjoyed avoiding it all. Maybe. But being ostracised and alone in an empty mountain full of bones probably seemed a lot worse. Maybe Ichigo could change that.

All he had to do was convince Grimmjow, last surviving demon of his clan, to enter a tengu estate and face the leaders of every other tribe in the Spirit Society. And expect them to believe him. Or care.

Easy.

Ichigo started to trudge back into the woods, feeling every step weigh heavier than the last. But he had to make it happen.

For all their sakes, he had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and the plot thickens! bubbles! curdles? whatever's happening, ichigo still hasn't snared himself a tasty blue demon. _yet_. tune in next time!
> 
> and thank you so much for the support last chapter! i feel quite emboldened to do all sorts of things now (and a little less nervous about what's already written and coming). you lovely people are extra super amazing, just so you know. expressive readers always are. i hope you're continuing to enjoy the fic! 🙏


	4. Chapter 4

The woods were kind of lonely and weird when nobody was walking through them with him. There were no chirping birds, no cute woodland animals. There weren’t even any bugs around. Just more red-gold maple leaves showering down, more sakura trees, more grass, more thin winding streams to jump over. Same purple sky. Same black soil. Maybe Grimmjow was right, maybe once you’d seen it, you didn’t need to see it again. Ooh, a new lantern. Ooh, another bridge. Ooh, an elitist youkai estate with big walls that didn’t let anyone in. Ooh, an elegant shrine buried in the hills. Big deal.

Ichigo looked up at the big wooden shrine with its red-painted torii framing the stone steps leading up the hill to its entrance. He was pretty sure he hadn’t seen it before.

“Fuck, I got lost.”

“Did you now?” asked a gentle, kind-sounding voice. “What a shame. I could lead you to your destination.”

The voice was way too familiar. Ichigo felt his stomach suck in against his spine as he looked around for its source.

“Unohana-san? Is that you?”

High above in the tallest of the trees, a thick white rope dropped down, hanging just in front of Ichigo’s eyes. It glistened wetly in a way he sure as hell didn’t like. Then a large, black, bulbous shadow began to slowly pick its way down.

Oh no.

Unohana-san was a spider.

Ichigo wasn’t at all sure about giant spider-women, especially when they were Unohana-san.

“I have to leave, sorry, bye!” Ichigo hollered, sprinting away in the other direction as fast as he could go. “I’m really sorry! I’m glad you’re alive!”

Bolting across the woods, blasting his face through all kinds of branches and leaves in the hopes he wouldn’t end up in a web like a tasty fly, Ichigo tripped and jumped and swore his way all across the Spirit Society, hoping to hell he was making enough noise that Grimmjow could find him. Had he just gone back to the mountain? Should he get up high and look for a mountain? What if it was the wrong one—

Ichigo slammed face-first into a white wall of muscle and sent himself and his obstacle flying into the dirt. His nose felt like it had broken, just a little. The gem on his chest went hot. The world spun in white and purple as the world tilted in what had to be a downhill slope, so he hung on in the hopes he could use whoever it was as a mattress when they landed on flat ground. He mostly managed, but the breath still thumped out of him in a long, involuntary exhale when he finally hit. His ribs groaned with the pressure but he tried to stifle it, pushing himself upright over the crumpled figure he’d landed on.

“Ouch,” said the figure with heartfelt discomfort, sitting up and pricking his ears once, twice. Ichigo was forced to bend with him until he was staring into slitted, pale green eyes. “Why am I being punished for my afternoon walk?”

Ichigo stared at Gin.

Gin stared at Ichigo.

“You’re back—” Gin started, forcing Ichigo to plant his hand right over the wide, thin mouth that was primed for nothing but lies. “Mmphhm.”

“Shut up for a second,” Ichigo said urgently. Blood on the street. Blood and Rangiku’s tears. “Shut up and listen to me. I know you’re Aizen’s agent. His spy. And I know why you’re doing it. But I’m about to do something crazy, and I need to trust you not to leak it to him. Can you do that?”

Gin’s eyes opened fully, the smug joviality that Ichigo was so used to seeing in that face leeching away into something cold, something calculating. Assessing whether or not to kill him, probably. Anyone stupid enough to tell Gin they knew what he was up to was a threat to be eliminated. Ichigo was banking on Gin knowing that, and stopping to wonder just who’d be that dumb—and why. When nothing happened immediately, Ichigo let his hand slide away and shuffled back. Too late he realised he’d been sitting on Ichimaru’s legs.

“You really do give me the creeps,” Gin said finally, tilting his head in a vulpine motion. “The things you know will get you killed one day.”

“But not today?”

“Let’s say you’ve piqued my interest.” Gin brushed loose soil off his kimono with a pale hand. His tone was too even. “Do you have something to do with the ravens I saw flying from the tengu estate?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Gin’s mouth stretched into a faint smile. “Careful not to take me for a fool, human. Many a youkai has perished from a terrible case of underestimating me.”

“Many a demon too, I bet,” Ichigo shot back, not giving an inch. “How many were you responsible for that day?”

“Tsk, tsk. You aren’t very subtle, are you?” Getting to his feet in a fluid motion that owed more to the uncoiling of a serpent than any fox-like movement, Gin reached down and hauled Ichigo up to his feet. The hand that held onto his forearm once he was standing felt like cold iron. “You’ve been speaking to that oni again, haven’t you? Perhaps this will be interesting indeed.” The hand released him, leaving bleached white skin in his wake.

Ichigo didn’t know a lot about Ichimaru Gin. Not really. He’d always kept his cards damn close to his chest, right up until the end. But Rangiku-san had known him and in his weird, cold-blooded way, everything he’d ever done had been for her. He couldn’t be all bad, or she’d never have loved him. At least, that was what Ichigo was desperately counting on.

“All I’m asking for is some time. Just—watch, for a bit.” Ichigo tipped his chin up so that he was looking Gin dead in his strange slitted eyes. “Whatever you decide, whatever side you take after that, I don’t care.”

“Hmm. Well, let me give you a word of advice. If it’s time you want, you should probably start running now.”

Ichigo tensed. “What?”

Pointing one long, elegant finger up to the sky, Gin smiled and hazed away into a pale purple mist.

“You’ve woken a spider.” Then he was gone. Somewhere high above in the canopy, branches rustled in a way that had nothing to do with the wind. A woman’s low, breathy laugh faintly touched Ichigo’s ears, delighted and menacing.

“Unohana-san.” Ichigo definitely didn’t whimper a little. If even Gin had run away that was probably a great sign he was about to become a muscular but ultimately delicious spider snack, so he bolted the fuck away for the hills. Or more specifically, a mountain. The break in the trees ahead showed him the direction he needed to go in, and Ichigo took it. Man, he took it.

Life was confusing blur of red, gold, grass and burning lungs for a while. Was he out of shape? Ichigo fucking felt out of shape as he cross-country ran what felt like the entire length of Spirit Society, heaving breaths like a dying cow and trying not to piss himself as the overhead crackle of branches finding new weight crept ever closer. Worse, he could hear something seriously gaining on him from the left at ground level. Spider babies? Baby spiders? Fuck spiders!

“This is not how I planned on dying,” Ichigo wheezed as he jumped over a fallen log and almost skidded on the damp moss-covered rocks leading to a river that was too damn wide to jump. Could she swim? Was Ukitake in there somewhere? Was he a monster too?!

The bushes to the left rustled hard, and Ichigo colourfully cursed his stupid fucking hormones for telling him to make the trip back to Spirit Society in the first place. Figured they’d be what got him killed at age twenty—

A blue blur jumped over the bushes like it was competing in the Olympic hurdles and landed right in front of him. Grimmjow straightened and wiped his brow a little, checking for sweat. He was glowing with ridiculously handsome perspiration like some kind of horned god of jewellery and sexy furs. His expression was irritated and smug at once.

“Told you I’d find you. But why the fuck did you go running in circles? I had to chase you from tengu town all the way south to the hills and then back here. Your scent fuckin’ looped back on itself.” Grimmjow took advantage of Ichigo’s flabbergasted relief to lean in and sniff his mouth. “I smell sake. Are you drunk?” He looked completely offended by the very idea.

“I…Byakuya let me drink a lot of sake while I was there,” Ichigo said, scanning the trees behind him. It all looked very quiet and somehow that was scaring him more. “Listen, can we get out of here? I saw a spider before—”

“Byakuya?” Grimmjow repeated, cutting across his words. Blue eyes slitted angrily. “You on first names with that feathered asshole now? You move fast, human.” It didn’t sound like a compliment. Maybe it sounded a bit like jealousy, but Ichigo was barely paying attention. Something high in the tree canopy was shifting a little. A shadow that probably wasn’t a shadow was picking its way along a thick branch. Then a black curtain of long hair slid over a pale, naked shoulder, revealing her.

A single blue eye stared down at him, showing white the entire way around. Part of her looked human. But not the bigger half.

Ichigo swallowed. “Grimmjow, we have to leave or we’re gonna die.” He pointed up into the trees.

Grimmjow looked up and followed his finger to the source of his pallor. He blinked at the shifting shadow Unohana-san made against the treetop. His mouth turned down slightly.

“Beat it, legs!” he yelled out, and pulled a red gem from his voluminous pants. “Or I’ll bake your eggs for dinner.” Pure crimson light poured from his fist as the gem activated, and before Ichigo’s fascinated eyes a heat like nothing he’d ever felt before bathed his face and arms. In Grimmjow’s black hand, the gem didn’t even make his skin smoke. Was _that_ why it looked so different?

Above, high above, a shriek that sounded like three voices screaming at once filled the glade. It didn’t sound like a shriek of fear. Grimmjow glared up at Unohana-san for a second longer, then pocketed the gem.

“Okay, new plan.” He grabbed Ichigo and threw him over his shoulder in one deft movement, palm on his ass for grip, and absolutely sprinted the fuck out of there toward the mountain. “You could have fucking told me it was _her!_ Now I’m on her shit list!”

“I said a spider! Run faster!” Looking back the way Grimmjow had come, Ichigo had a front row view of Unohana-san hitting the dirt in a scrabbling click of pointy, hairy black legs and glistening black abdomen segments flipping over. There was a bright red streak of something on her back that said she probably had a killer bite. Ichigo was less intimidated by that than he was her torso; pale-skinned, humanoid and naked, four slim arms and a silk banner of jet-black hair flaring around her. It was definitely Unohana-san, despite her white fang teeth and the four small lumps on her forehead that he sure fucking hoped didn’t open up into eyes. “Run, run, run!”

“I’m running!” Grimmjow roared back, and he really was. Ichigo felt the trees around him blur together with the wind as Grimmjow bolted through them with seamless grace for someone used to darkness and caves. Sinking his fingers into the rope-like bow on his back, Ichigo grit his teeth and stared the woman-spider dead in the eye as she scrabbled and clawed her way to catch up to them.

“Boy,” she called in her three-chord merry menacing voice, “I’ll care for you better than he ever could.”

“I’m not into women,” Ichigo called back. “But I’m flattered! People in my world would call you a MILF!”

“A what?” Unohana-san asked across the distance, clipping a leg on the edge of a shrub and almost stumbling. She wasn’t used to running. Ichigo thought fast as the warm palm on his ass squeezed warningly.

“M-I-L-F! It stands for a Mom I’d Like to Fuck!” Twisting a little, he hissed at Grimmjow, “Will you fucking run? I can see her boobs!”

Spiderhana looked blasted with surprise over the label, actually slowing her gait for an instant as she stared at Ichigo with blank, mindless killer eyes. Black veins were standing out in the corners of her red mouth, flowing down her throat to her chest. He sure hoped those weren’t her venom glands, but after a while it didn’t seem to matter that much because he’d seen Unohana-san’s nipples and man, there were only so many shocking things he could take in one fucking day.

Ichigo went limp for the rest of the journey to the mountain—Grimmjow’s mountain—but even he felt the faint bubble-prick sensation as they crossed the wards and into safe territory at last. Not bothering to stop so soon, Grimmjow shot them inside the main mouth of the cave before he dropped like a stone. Tumbling off his shoulder like a sack of vegetables, Ichigo rolled off to one side while Grimmjow lay beside him heaving massive, exhausted lungfuls of air. They’d made it. They were alive. They were safe in the cave again. No more spiderhana.

God.

Ichigo stared up at the dark jagged rock overhead and tried not to see two full, swinging globes of pale flesh and their unsettlingly pink nipples. It was like seeing your aunt naked, except Ichigo didn’t have any aunts. Female role models were…did Yoruichi count? He didn’t think she did.

“Uno-fucking-hana,” Grimmjow was wheezing, staring at the ceiling along with him. His chest was rising and falling like the labouring breaths of an exhausted stallion. “I thought you knew all the spirits here! How’d you manage to miss the fact she’s one of the bloodthirstiest killers in the Spirit Society?”

“I—she was a healer in my world! Kind of terrifying, but still a motherly healer type. There’s no way she’d ever have hurt anyone.” Ichigo felt like someone would have told him if that hadn’t been the case.

“Believe me now when I said this place isn’t all fun and games?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Lifting his black arm, Grimmjow stared at his palm and frowned. “Haven’t needed to activate a gem in years. Felt good. Too bad she’s the closest thing to a demon those noble shitheads have.”

“Would the gem not have worked?”

“Fire just pisses her off. Besides, I don’t really want to kill her. She has her good moments.” His breath steadying a little, no longer gasping as hard, Grimmjow licked his lips. “Couple of decades back, I got stuck in one of her ground webs while I was crossing my boundary for some new game to hunt. Stuck there wide open. Figured it was how I’d die.” Long fingers closed over his palm, teal claws testing the give of his own skin. “She came down on that sticky silk rope of hers and pulled me out of the trap. Said she didn’t want to eat anything that had eyes like mine.” Grimmjow’s brow creased a little. He turned his head to look at Ichigo. “Guess she liked yours, though. Never seen her run after prey like that before.”

“I have that effect on older women,” Ichigo said, pushing himself upright and clambering to his feet. When Grimmjow just stared up at him, still breathing a little faster than usual, bare skin gleaming with cooling sweat, he thought very seriously about the repercussions of finding out if demon sweat was salty or not. But he liked living, and Grimmjow didn’t seem to have any physical interest in him whatsoever. He reached out with both hands until Grimmjow reached back. “C’mon, lets wash and then do food or something. Did you see my coat anywhere while you were sulking in the bushes?”

“Yeah, I grabbed it. It’s in the home cavern. Not that you deserve it now, fuckin’ ingrate.” But he let Ichigo heave his weight until they were both standing, and didn’t fight when he didn’t let go right away. His expression was a little considering. “You were gone for a while. Thought you just wanted to greet the tengu woman. How’d you end up talking to that lord? He’s tribe leader, you know. Not just his clan—all tengu bow and scrape for his feathery ass.” The suspicion in his blue eyes wasn’t welcome. Ichigo fidgeted a little, casting a glance around the main cavern like there was a decent hint there on how not to make Grimmjow pissed off.

“You want to know all about it right now? Lets get back in that hot spring first. We’re both sweaty as hell.”

If it was possible, Grimmjow’s eyes narrowed even further. His mouth thinned. “You trying to distract me?”

“Trying to get you naked, actually.”

“Real cute.” But the frown relaxed a little. Dusting himself off, checking his seven hundred accessories for damage, Grimmjow gestured to the tunnel entrance with an ‘after you’ movement. Ichigo silently counted his blessings for the hundredth time that the demon Grimmjow and the one back home didn’t share the same knee-jerk murderous impatience. Or maybe he just really wanted a bath too. Hopefully he didn’t drown Ichigo once he told the whole story.

Knowing his silver linings looked more like cheap tin, Ichigo whistled a happy tune as he made his way through the dark tunnels, feeling Grimmjow’s guiding hand turn him in the right direction as he wandered.

“Oh shit, wait.” Ichigo stopped walking, feeling Grimmjow bump into him lightly. “My soap is in my bag. I gotta get it first.”

“I’ll get it,” Grimmjow said generously. Ichigo frowned.

“But then how am I supposed to know where to—”

“Hands!”

Ichigo’s world turned glowing blue, and the colour looked a lot like hell. Grabbed up into the air like a baby’s favourite rattle, resigned to the ride once again, he figured the best he could do then was to hang there and wait for the destination.

Murderous impulses or not, one thing was still the same: Grimmjow was a cackling bastard in any universe.

* * *

“I’m just saying—” Ichigo broke off as he tangled the necklace around his chin trying to pull off his t-shirt, “—you seem to have more brains than Grimmjow gives you credit for. Somehow. You could do what I say every now and then, maybe not manhandle me whenever he tells you to.” Throwing the t-shirt onto the folded pile of his jeans, boots and socks, he thumbed under the elastic of his underwear and pulled it down to join the rest. Was he self-conscious about getting naked in front of a pair of blue oni hands? Hell no.

Hands, ignoring everything Ichigo was saying, was swishing its massive fingertips through the hot spring water like it was testing the temperature. It tried three different sections of the pool before settling on a decent one in the centre, near a water-smoothed stone lip on the other side of the spring. It happened to be right above an absolute liquid rainbow of different gems, their light pouring up from the bedrock. Cupping a huge palmful of the water, Hands lifted it and swooped over to Ichigo expectantly.

“You wanna…? Oh, hang on.” Grabbing his clothes and shoving them in a small rocky alcove halfway up the wall, Ichigo spread his arms and legs. “Okay, hit me.” The result was a head-to-toe torrential shower of steaming hot water that drenched every inch of him. Scrubbing himself down with his hands under the last trickles of water, wishing he had his cake of soap, Ichigo washed off at least the sweat of the day. “Thanks. Can I get another one?” Spreading its fingers like happy jazz hands, it rushed back to the water to gather another makeshift shower tank for him.

Ichigo was enjoying his third such dousing when he heard a quiet snort from behind him. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw Grimmjow approaching with his bag tucked under one arm. His mouth was clamped down like he didn’t want to grin and show his fangs, but the corners of his eyes were crinkled a little.

“Supposed to bathe in the spring, you know.” He held out the bag to Ichigo, who took it without totally turning around and unzipped the main pocket to rummage for his products. He came out with a cake of white, flowery-smelling soap and a travel shampoo and conditioner he’d stolen out of Karin’s bathroom drawer. He wasn’t sure if he had normal or dry hair but figured it couldn’t hurt him.

“I didn’t know if soap would mess with the gem water,” Ichigo explained, pretending very hard that he didn’t care about Grimmjow being able to see his naked ass. Guys showered together all the time, and besides, Grimmjow wasn’t interested. The guy had literally touched his pubes with no hesitation for science. Or curiosity. Whatever. The point was, Ichigo knew when he had no chance. Being human might have some perks, but it had one massive drawback: he wasn’t seen as anyone’s equal in the Spirit Society. He was an amusing pet at best.

“Water’s not going to sour just because you washed your ass in it. The spring renews itself and cleans out impurity.” Grimmjow reached behind himself and began tugging expertly at the large rope-like belt around his waist. Able to see this time, Ichigo watched him unravel the layers he wore from the hips down.

With the blue rope gone, the metal plates that covered him front and back were next, removed with a deft bow hidden beneath the front piece. The banner-like length of bright blue cloth went with it. The teal trailing material with the hanging beads was simply pulled out of his waistband and dropped with a clatter on top of the metal plates, a grey and black half-wrapped layer following swiftly after. Grimmjow stopped there briefly, considering, then unbuckled his strap-like footwear. Ichigo figured that meant the pants were coming off next and almost squeezed his soap straight out of his hand.

Grimmjow shot him a brief, odd look then, and Ichigo knew he was staring.

“Something interesting?”

“Aren’t you going to take off the fur?” Ichigo asked, hoping the muscles in his stomach hadn’t visibly jumped with his sudden nervousness. “And the long earrings?”

“What, you want it all off?”

Yes please, Ichigo thought strongly. What he said was, “It’s kind of gross to bathe while wearing all your jewellery, isn’t it?”

Frowning down at his own body, touching the remaining two necklaces that hung across his chest, Grimmjow chewed on the corner of his lip. Endearingly, his clawed toes curled a little while he thought it over. Taking his chance, Ichigo put his soaps down and approached, reaching for the first earlobe with outstretched fingertips.

It was an unanchored metal wire through his ear; easily curved up and out of the piercing. Grimmjow let him do as he pleased, eyes sliding to try and follow the movements of his arm. Up close, Ichigo saw the earring was about six feathers of different lengths bound together with gold wire. Taking the other one out carefully, he held both up to the pool’s strange light to examine the colour.

“You definitely stole these off Byakuya.”

Grimmjow stiffened, his quiet acquiescence shattering. Snatching them both out of Ichigo’s grasp, he started to put them back in with short, angry motions until Ichigo pressed his thumbs over the piercings, squeezing the soft lobes lightly between his fingers.

“Calm down, jeez it’s not like I care—”

“I didn’t steal shit,” Grimmjow said hotly, tipping his head to try to pull his way free. “Not my fault the fucker left them lying around where the wind could grab ‘em. I just pulled them out of the branches later. Let my ears go before I break your fingers.”

“No.”

“I will kick your ass into the spring.”

“Do it and you’ll lose your earlobes,” Ichigo challenged, scowling up at him. “Why are you so mad? Because I mentioned Byakuya? Why do you hate him so much?”

“Because I hate all of them!” Grimmjow snarled, and this time his teeth were on perfect display. “Every single shitty noble and all their ugly useless fuckin’ tribes! I’m no fuckin’ thief, human, but if I did steal from those assholes I sure as hell wouldn’t be sorry. If you don’t like it, you can go running back to your feather-assed nobles. Not like I’ll give a shit having the mountain back to myself—”

“You’re jealous,” Ichigo said suddenly, cutting across whatever insult Grimmjow was about to level at him. He was delighted. “You think I’m going to ditch you for Byakuya and Rukia. I knew it!” Letting go of his ears that time, not giving a damn that he was standing there wet and naked, Ichigo clasped Grimmjow’s whole spitting mad face between his hands and smiled up at him. “You’re the best. Take your pants off.”

“No!” Grimmjow cried, thunderstruck. He actually clutched one forearm to his waist like Ichigo was going to strip him naked. “And I’m not jealous of them. You can do whatever the fuck you want. You’ve only been here two days, it’s not like I care if you go. In fact it’s less fuckin’ fishing to do, so…are you listening?”

Walking over to the spring to dip his foot into the water, Ichigo tested the heat. Not bad this time. Definitely no scalding. Maybe the shower had helped warm his skin up enough.

“Kinda. Hey, can you pass me my soap and those bottles when I get in? Full warning though, if I poison the spring somehow and your gems all blow up, it’s your fault.” Sitting down with an embarrassingly loud smack of his wet ass on the stone, Ichigo slipped his way slowly into the steaming water. “This is kind of nice this time. Does the temperature change or something?” He held out his hands expectantly for the soap.

For a long moment Grimmjow just stared at him like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then, with a sudden jerk he came to life, blinking and walking over to grab the shampoo and soap. Dropping them on the edge of the pool, he frowned down at Ichigo as he grabbed the white bar and began lathering in earnest. The camp-bath he’d done before had nothing on a proper wash and soak. The water was hot enough that the initial plunge in felt uncomfortable, but as he sat there chest-deep and sitting on the bench-like outcrop of stone under the water, it slowly began to soften into a wonderful, humming heat that sank fingers into his muscles the longer he sat there. It felt great.

In fact it felt so nice that he barely paid attention to the clank and thump of movement behind him that said Grimmjow was taking off the rest of his jewellery and the fur pelt. If he was getting in with Ichigo he couldn’t be that mad about the thief comment. He should probably apologise for it, but how to start? He hadn’t seen it as an insult. Ichigo would steal Byakuya’s feathers from his actual wings in a heartbeat if he thought he could get away with it. Not because he wanted them, but just to have done it. The guy was way too uptight.

“I don’t get you,” Grimmjow muttered, and then a pale leg was right beside Ichigo’s head. Not only was he getting in, he was getting in with practically a centimetre to spare between them. If Ichigo turned his head even a little he’d be kissing demon thigh. Was he planning to sit on his shoulder? “I nearly cracked your skull like an egg yesterday. You should be scared shitless of me when I’m angry but it’s like you don’t even see it. Think I’m just bluffing? Those tengu assholes tell you I’m all talk?” When Ichigo didn’t reply right away, a foot prodded him in the ribs. He grabbed it with his free hand and started soaping it. Grimmjow only jerked away once, then let him continue with wary curiosity. Ichigo figured that was permission enough to keep going.

“I call him Byakuya because that’s what I’ve always called him in my world.” Bubbles rose from the milky soap residue, clouding the water around them. The prick of toe claws scratched against Ichigo’s hand. Gross. “Don’t worry, he hates it there too. We’re not really friends; mostly I think he tolerates me out of a debt. I almost broke the Soul Society trying to save my world’s Rukia. Almost broke him too, come to think. He was so set on following the rules that he almost watched his sister be executed just for saving my life.” Tipping his head back a little, Ichigo looked up at Grimmjow. “I had to tell him the whole story of my world before he’d even consider listening to the rest. But you know what he was most interested in?”

“What?” Grimmjow asked grudgingly. He was holding the little shampoo bottle in his hand, sniffing the contents. Belatedly Ichigo realised Grimmjow wasn’t even wearing the gold rings around the base of his horns, his pointed metal ear cuffs or the thick band on his arm. He really had taken everything off, just like Ichigo had wanted. It left him wearing nothing but sun-shy skin and the glowing blue that ran through his black arm and wrist. “C’mon, I’m not gonna sleep tonight unless you tell me what got lord asshole hot and bothered.”

“I know you’re being sarcastic but it sounds gross when you say it like that.” Lifting the necklace by the round black gem, Ichigo waved it a little. “It was this. He couldn’t believe a demon would ever give something to a human, but when I told him what it did, he—”

“You _told_ him?” Grimmjow groaned incredulously. He dumped a load of shampoo on Ichigo’s head and started roughly scrubbing it in one-handed. “You stupid shit, the not knowing is the only reason most youkai will leave you alone! They don’t know what it does!”

“What do you care?” Ichigo said slyly. “Five minutes ago you were kicking me out of the mountain to fend for myself.”

“Shut up. I changed my mind.”

“Mmhm.” The claws in his hair gentled a little though, slipping through foamy skeins of his hair and dragging trails all over his scalp. Bath time for the annoying pet, probably. It felt amazing. “You’re good at this.”

“Yeah? Never done it before. Maybe I’m good at everything.”

“Everything except trusting people.”

“Trust you just fine,” Grimmjow replied, but there was a shadow in his voice. “You’re upfront, even when the truth makes you sound like a crazy fucker. Crazy I can handle. Lies and other bullshit? Nah. Rather a knife in my chest than in my back.”

“But you don’t really trust me. You just think I’m harmless. It’s not the same thing, you know.”

“Don’t start talking about that deep shit again.” Claws scrubbed through his hair again, then shoved his head straight under the water. Ichigo was forced to fold like a swiss army knife or have his spine snapped. Ichigo blinked through the soapy water as his hair ran clean, feeling a hand holding him down. Thankfully Grimmjow wasn’t trying to drown him, and after another moment brought him back up. He tilted Ichigo’s head until they were eye to eye. “What’s your fuckin’ fixation on strength, anyway? Think you’re only worth shit if you can win a fight? That why you were panicking about losing that token of yours last night?”

Wiping his eyes clear, Ichigo looked up at him for a long moment. What a weird question to ask.

“Any time I haven’t been strong, or able to access my powers I’ve been benched. Looked after and left behind.” Pushing the hand on his head away, rubbing his neck, Ichigo frowned at the water lapping at his chest. He grabbed the bar of soap and stuck it behind him, refusing to look up. “My strength is the only thing that makes me useful in my world. Otherwise I’m just a burden to be carried by my friends, and I can’t stand that feeling. I don’t want to feel it here.”

The silence that filled the cavern in the wake of his words felt like an expanding balloon that slowly reached into every pit and dark corner the rainbow light couldn’t touch. Including the one in Ichigo’s chest. Beside him, Grimmjow was quiet for long seconds as he mulled his words over. The thigh beside Ichigo’s head was warm, so he tipped his wet cheek against it and shut his eyes. It was stupidly easy to be honest there in that place. Grimmjow made it so easy to say things he’d cut his own throat before uttering back home. Sure, he still wanted to crawl in on himself and wither away, but there was no fear in saying them. No judgement.

“Strength isn’t as important as you think.”

Ichigo snorted softly. “Sure.”

“I mean it.” A hand shoved his head away as Grimmjow pushed himself forward into the water, sending small waves climbing up Ichigo’s neck and jaw. So much for copping a view, he thought distantly as clawed fingers caught his chin and tugged his face around. “Look at me. Am I strong? Do I look strong to you?”

“Obviously.”

“Uh-huh. And what do I have?”

“What?”

“What do I have? What the hell did strength give me? Fuckin’ nothing, that’s what.” There was no self-pity in the words, just a forceful, almost angry statement of fact. “By itself, strength doesn’t count for shit. You need guts first. You need heart.” Leaning in, all the way right in, Grimmjow stopped just short of bumping their foreheads together. His breath touched Ichigo’s lips; cool against his still-damp skin. His eyes filled up the universe, throwing back the shifting light of the cave. “Quit talkin’ shit about yourself just because you can’t kick Aizen’s face in with your left foot, or whatever you’re wishing you could be doing.” Thin, downturned brows knotted slightly as he stared at Ichigo. “Don’t you worry about being strong enough. You’ve got me for that.”

It was on the tip of Ichigo’s tongue to point out that the reason he didn’t have his strength was because Grimmjow had purposely sabotaged him, but it felt like a cheap shot when he knew why he’d done it. Somehow, in two brief past encounters and now this real chance to get to know each other, Grimmjow had decided that Ichigo belonged to him in some way. Even down to fighting for him. Every fibre of his being rebelled at the idea, every old promise he made himself to be the one who would fight for others, who would protect them—but at the same time it was sort of touching, in an awful, unsettling way. Would it make him weak to accept? No more than it made Rukia weak to receive his help all those years ago, he supposed. Sometimes swinging a sword had to be left to someone else, for circumstance if nothing else.

Well, maybe in that case, it would be okay. Besides, Grimmjow looked so damn earnest about it. Ichigo wanted to kiss his fanged mouth for it. He was a paranoid dumbass and a sometimes-terrifying demon king, but just then he was sort of sweet, trying to cheer Ichigo up like that.

“Are you proposing to me again?” Ichigo asked at close range, trying to dissolve the moment. He wasn’t good with deep conversations. “I haven’t even had a chance to tell you everything that happened today. You might not like me so much when you find out what we’re going to be doing tomorrow.” He waited for Grimmjow to pull away and study him intently before he pushed off the edge of the spring with his feet, swimming across the deepest part of the pool to where Hands had been pulling water from earlier. The fact that it was the furthest point from Grimmjow was a happy coincidence. Nothing to do with being out of the way if he decided to rage out.

“Must be serious if you’ve gotta get that far away.” He jutted his chin a little, slouching back into the stone with crossed arms. “Let me guess: your Byakuya wants some of my gems.” Grabbing Ichigo’s soap from the pool’s edge beside him, Grimmjow started lathering himself like it was something he did every day. Maybe he liked the scent. Ichigo watched him work up a thick white lather on his chest and arms for a short, hungry second.

“He’s not my anything, and he doesn’t know you have any gems because I didn’t tell him.” Holding up the round black gem hanging around his neck again, Ichigo pointed at it. “Maybe once he would have wanted this one, though. Did you know his wife died around the same time your tribe was killed here?”

Grimmjow blinked, pausing in the middle of his rinse. “Died? You mean like murdered?”

“No, she got sick. Real sick.”

“Oh.” There was no sympathy in his eyes. “Healing gem probably would’ve fixed her.”

“That’s what Byakuya is thinking.” Ichigo bit his lip for an instant. “Grimmjow, he didn’t know.”

“About healing gems?”

“About the massacre.”

For a long, awful moment Grimmjow just stared at him. The blue markings on his cheeks stood out like brands against his sudden pallor. Slowly, he swallowed, and swallowed again. It looked like he was struggling not to be sick. Ichigo’s chest hurt.

“You’re telling me,” Grimmjow said hoarsely, “that over two hundred demons from ten different clans were slaughtered—were fucking exterminated—inside the mountain and nobody out there even noticed? Nobody out there in the light stopped to wonder why it all got so quiet while I was stuck in here alone with the stench of my brothers’ and sisters’ _putrid rotting corpses?!_" The last was almost a roar of rage and grief, caught and barely held in check by short, gasping breaths that sounded like they tore his throat. High above his hunched anguish, Hands blinked into sight again as though summoned by his pain. Twin palms circled him like an umbrella of blue fire, but did nothing. There was no comfort for what Grimmjow had just learned.

Ichigo steeled himself. “Byakuya thinks it could have been Aizen’s idea all along, to drive the demons into the mountains and underground, where nobody would see them anymore. He wants you to go to the estate tomorrow and tell every—”

“Shut up. Stop talking.”

Ichigo shut up. Turning his back, Grimmjow braced his hands on the spring’s edge and lowered his head. His shoulders weren’t quite steady. Neither was his voice.

“The blood was half an inch thick across the arena floor.” The words were quiet, almost whispered, but they carried to Ichigo’s ears in the crystalline silence of the cavern. “Whole place stank like wet metal and cracked gems. But it wasn’t the gems. It was the stink of their magic leaving their bones. I can still taste it in the back of my throat.” A shuddering breath left him. “Shawlong didn’t even have legs anymore, but he hung on ‘til I got to him. He stayed alive to warn me. Fucking babysitting asshole, always watching my back…” His head lifted. Claws scratched white lines in the stone. “He died with lungs full of blood, and nobody knows any of it happened except me.”

And me, Ichigo added silently, his eyes stinging. Now Byakuya. If nothing else changed, if they didn’t manage to take even a single step forward away from the horror of that day, Ichigo was going to make sure everyone in Spirit Society knew that the demons—those terrifying, bloodthirsty killers the other youkai told their children bedtime stories about—had in fact died in tragic silence so that one fucking dragon could have his jewel unchallenged. Let them choke on the consequences of their selfish and small-minded segregation. An entire culture gone, and only Grimmjow to shoulder the burden. The price of looking the other way for a hollow and empty idea of peace.

Ichigo had thought that Grimmjow’s reaction would be one of anger, of more bitterness toward the other youkai tribes. More of the usual scorn, because he’d never really seemed to be that affected by the death of his tribe. Not after so long. He’d laughed at Ichigo for being sad, after all. Shame filled him, hot and miserable. Of course it was all just an act—he’d been an asshole to ever assume otherwise. He was just starting to return to his side when Grimmjow planted his hands and pushed himself out of the water in a rush, muscles rippling into sharp relief in the arch of his shoulders. Ichigo looked away before he could see anything more than the taper of his waist and the black number six, feeling like complete shit about the whole thing. He’d been sitting there like some kind of pervert, holding onto devastating knowledge without any fucking thought for how it’d affect Grimmjow. He’d been holding onto it like currency, not realising it was a grenade.

Watching the water and nothing else until the sounds of Grimmjow drying and dressing had faded, Ichigo tried to think about what the hell he was going to do. There was no way he’d be able to drag him to the tengu estate tomorrow. He didn’t even want to try it, knowing how utterly insignificant and forgotten Grimmjow was probably feeling. Even if it wasn’t the case at all—trying to change his mind through brute force would be impossible.

Maybe he was just making a mess, digging up old wounds. Old memories. What if it led to nothing? What if Aizen had what he wanted and was content? What if he was just ninety years gone already? Everything he’d done would be a cruelty, not an attempt to help Grimmjow. Slumping down until the water touched his lips, Ichigo wondered for a single horrified second if he was just starting trouble for his own ends. A reason to stay. Purpose. A fight.

Relevance, after peace had come in his own world.

Hadn’t he just said he hated being benched?

Unable to answer his own question and afraid to even try, Ichigo crushed his thoughts until they were tightly shelved in the back of his mind. On the pool’s edge, Grimmjow was looking at him with an empty gaze. There was nothing on his face to reflect his thoughts. In his hands were the majority of his clothes; he’d only bothered to put on his pants. Wet blue hair hung limply over his brow around his horns.

“Need to walk. Hands’ll stay.”

“Okay.”

Grimmjow left. His footsteps scraped away into nothing but faint echoes in the outside tunnels, and then Ichigo was alone.

Almost alone. A giant fingertip touched the top of his head carefully, like it was making sure he was still there. Reaching up, Ichigo pulled the entire finger down and hugged it, grinding his forehead into the cold, leathery blue skin.

“I’m a fucking idiot.” He didn’t fight when the finger shook itself free, or even when both palms clasped him under the water in a full-body squeeze. It seemed to be its approximation of a returned hug, and pathetic as it was Ichigo appreciated it. If Hands didn’t hate him, Grimmjow probably didn’t either. Was that how their mental connection worked? He watched dully as ten blue digits disappeared under the water completely, the blue fire around the wrists of the oni hands not extinguishing as it went.

When Hands surfaced again, it was holding something.

“A gem?” Ichigo asked curiously, taking the proffered orange rock. It was empty of any light, about the size of a squashed golf ball. Rough-hewn and not at all like the jewels from treasure hunt movies, it was a dull and lifeless clump of crystal in his hand. It also had a massive crack through it, one that almost broke it in two. There was something familiar about it. “Hey, is this the one Grimmjow gave me? The gem Gin stole?” The dullness of the stone made it almost unrecognisable, but Ichigo was sure it had never shone as brightly as the others in the pool. “Can I keep it?”

Hands just started towing him across the water, toward the ledge where he could get out. It didn’t try to take the gem back, so Ichigo took it as a yes and got out of the hot spring. The shock of cold air on his naked skin after so long in there prickled into goosebumps. Drying himself quickly with his scratchy old gym towel, he stepped into his clothes and pulled his t-shirt back on, feeling the softness of the cotton differently on his skin. Maybe there was some weird power in the hot spring. Or it was the shit-ton of gems in there doing things. He put the orange rock in his pocket as best he could and tugged the white hem of his shirt down over it. His jeans were too tight to actually carry much, but there was nowhere else to put it.

“C’mon, show me the way out to where Grimmjow catches his fish. I’m hungry.” Somehow, Ichigo didn’t think waiting around for an upset demon to remember he needed to eat was going to pay off for him.

With a bright swoop of blue fire and a small poke in the butt-cheek, Hands seemed to agree.

* * *

The river was a wide, reddish-purple body of water that made absolutely no sense. The water should have been brown like any other river, or even clear blue at the wildest end of the imagination. Instead it looked like there was some sort of crazy algae growing in it that turned the entire thing into the colour of sunset. Flashes of quicksilver fish shifted beneath the water, too fast to see when they moved but they hung in place at times, suspended against the current. The reeds surrounding the river were brilliant green and faded gold, giving way to a small opening to the riverbank where Ichigo stood. The air smelled like water and wet grass, touching his skin with a gentle breeze.

Ichigo loved it. What a peaceful place.

There was evidence that Grimmjow spent time there, too; a harpoon-like spear about half his height was laying in the reeds, its metal tip lethally sharp and clean. Ichigo would bet real money that he’d made the spearhead himself. He hoped he got to see the forge where Grimmjow made things one day. Beside the spear was a folded net, a small thin-bladed knife and a small basket of what looked like—oh, gross—dried maggots. But there didn’t seem to be a proper fishing rod anywhere. Had he put it away somewhere?

Hunting around in the reeds, careful not to slip in the wet mud, Ichigo almost missed the strawberry-blonde head peering at him from the river. With a small ‘eep!’ of surprise it vanished the moment he turned fully, leaving behind only a ripple. A mermaid? Or just someone out for a swim?

Pretending to ignore the sight entirely, he went back to his search. Eyes subtly scanning for another movement, he remembered the net only a couple of feet away.

When the head resurfaced again, it was much closer. Ichigo thought he could see blue eyes, wide and curious as they watched him. Oblivious as he could possibly appear, he turned back to the direction of the net. It was right next to his foot by then, and the creature was gliding ever closer. He reached out—and hesitated. Why should he try to catch it? It was just a river youkai, probably, interested in a human standing on the bank. Ichigo slowly straightened and turned to the creature.

A squeal and a loud splash as it rocketed backwards in the water. Did it think it had been sneaky?

“Do you have any fish you could give me?” Ichigo called out to the half-submerged head, amused by the terrible attempt to stalk him. “I can’t find the rod and I don’t really want to get wet again so soon.” His only response was a slurping splash as the head vanished entirely. “Well, damn.”

“She’s not used to seeing two-legged folk,” said a distinctly male voice behind him. “At least, not the kind that come unarmed.” His voice sounded light and almost musical, like water running over stone. Ichigo turned around to meet Spirit Society’s answer to Ukitake Jushirou.

Ichigo had to give his instincts some credit; Ukitake was definitely some kind of mermaid. He was half exposed on the riverbank, close enough to push back into the water in an instant, but his top half was very humanoid. A ridge of pinkish, translucent needle-like spines ran down the length of his back, flowing into silvery scales that threw back glittering patterns of darker metallic colour when he moved. There were similar fins on his forearms and ears, which were peaked like some kind of pixie or elven thing. But he still had the same pure white hair and startlingly black brows, and his chest was bare-skinned instead of scales. The brown eyes that studied him with bright interest were still friendly, but Ichigo knew there was more than just good humour going on behind that gaze.

“You’ve got some river weed stuck in your hair,” Ichigo told him nonchalantly, walking over. He knelt down just outside arm’s reach. “How are you, Ukitake-san?”

Dark brows shot up in surprise. Propped on an elbow, stomach to the silky mud of the riverbank, Ukitake threaded his fingers through the long tail of his braid until he found the slimy length of green and pulled it out. It hit the water with a dismissive slap, but neither of them watched it go.

“I’m well, human. What do I call you?”

“I’m Ichigo.”

“Ichigo,” Ukitake repeated, tasting the name. “Interesting that you should stand here without even a drop of fear in your waters. Who taught you to be so unafraid in the face of a youkai?” His tail flipped up out of the water, showing a brilliant translucent fin the size of a sail. “That’s Grimmjow’s necklace you wear, isn’t it?”

Ichigo’s stomach jumped. “You know him?”

“He comes to plunder my river almost every day. I had wondered why he took double his usual spoils yesterday, but it seems the answer kneels right here before me.” Ukitake pulled himself forward further on his hands. They were clawed, but the nails more resembled the weird pink urchin-like spines on his back. He smelled kinda fishy, but Ichigo thought it might be bad manners to reel away or say so. “Did you kill him, perchance?”

“No! What the hell? He just went for a walk or something. I came out to see if I could catch us a late lunch, but I can’t see the rod anywhere.” Ichigo sat back on his ass. He felt a magnificent bout of self-pity coming on. “Can you catch me some fish?”

Ukitake gave him a long, speaking look of incredulity. “You want the ningyo lord of Spirit Society to feed you? I’m the head of my entire tribe. All rivers belong to me.”

“I thought ningyo were sea youkai.” Ichigo tilted his head. “And ugly.”

“Do you see a sea anywhere? And don’t believe the stereotypes. It shows a stunning lack of critical thinking.” Ukitake slithered back a little, then flipped around and disappeared into the river with a splash. Ichigo watched him go with a sigh.

“Great. Who else can I piss off or upset today?”

The conversation did make him wonder why everyone was talking to him so readily, though. Last time Gin had tricked them, but he hadn’t been wrong about the taboo of youkai speaking to humans. It was wholly against their laws, but who governed them? The idea of some youkai Yamamoto was absolutely terrifying, and frankly he was too damn worried to ask in case it summoned him into being somehow. The whole place was making him extremely superstitious.

He was just getting up to leave when there was a messy splash behind him, and he turned just in time to duck a wet flash of silver. Then another one. Ichigo blinked down at two freshly killed fish of indeterminate species, each one the length of his arm. There was a small puncture through the skull of each that looked like a mercy killing via a sharp needle-like claw.

“I received a message today that a human had entered the Spirit Society under the protection of the oni clan, and wished to present some information to the tribe leaders.” Revealed to his shoulders, the long braid of his hair floating in a half-circle around him, Ukitake smiled suddenly with teeth like a piranha. “You’ll need your energy for tomorrow, I suspect.”

“Thanks.” Reaching down, Ichigo grabbed both fish by the tail fin. They were unexpectedly heavy. “Guess I’ll see you there.”

“You will. Until then, Ichigo.” Turning away to dive, Ukitake stopped suddenly. “Ah, do me a favour? Ask Grimmjow to please stop trying to stab Kiyone with his harpoon. She’s almost perfected her two-legged transformation, and I worry for his safety on the riverbank if he should try it again.” He sank under the water before Ichigo could absorb all of that, standing there blinking amidst the reeds. Weird. Well, whatever. He hauled the fish over to the stashed supplies and set to work scaling and gutting his ‘catch’.

Ichigo was halfway back through the tunnels with his prize when it struck him. Ukitake worried for Grimmjow? Ukitake the fishy tribe leader guy that Grimmjow had talked about wanting to stab? Wonder what that meant, other than him just always being a nice guy and kind of a fragile fatherly figure. Not that he couldn’t do wholesale damage when the occasion called for it. It did make weird sense that he’d keep an eye on a loner like Grimmjow, despite being routinely attacked from a distance. Poor Kiyone. Was she the blonde in the water? Ichigo had vague memories of a short girl in Soul Society who’d followed him around a lot.

Thinking about it the whole way into the home cavern, seeing he was still alone in there, Ichigo used Hands as his flashlight and set about starting a fresh campfire with his stolen lighter, setting up the metal frame over the top of the wood to heat. He made the fire twice the size of the last one, big enough to cook the larger fish, and spread the tinder evenly around the tufts of dry grass when it started to catch in earnest. While he waited for it to heat up enough, Ichigo washed his hands and face in the big tarred wooden bucket he’d used that morning. The water would need changing soon.

Ichigo wondered if Ukitake knew about the demons. He lived close enough, didn’t he? The river was only a ten minute walk from the mountain, and even less than that from the boundary perimeter. Or maybe like Grimmjow had always assumed, nobody actually cared. That didn’t feel right. It was way more likely Grimmjow had just been trying to stab them all because he thought they knew, when in truth Aizen had buried the entire thing and thought he’d gotten all the demons. Or at least that he’d covered his tracks so much that nothing could point back to him. Somehow. Something about that just didn’t hold water at all—he’d come for a big gathering and left behind a slaughterhouse. Was it possible he hadn’t realised for the longest time that he’d missed a single oni clan demon?

Worse, was Grimmjow now so insignificant to him that he didn’t need to kill him? What kind of strength did he have?

“I’m going to drive myself nuts like this,” Ichigo groaned into the silence of the cavern, rubbing his hands over his face and into his hair. It was mostly dry by then and feeling spikier than ever. Rukia’s spit-plaster was well and truly gone. “Hands, are you there? Do you know where Grimmjow went?”

Blue palms appeared and spread in a questioning motion, but Ichigo didn’t trust it. He also couldn’t bring himself to push the point. That old saying about not shooting the messenger was pure bullshit, really; Ichigo wanted to punch himself in the face. Maybe he could stay with Rukia and Kon after tomorrow if Grimmjow didn’t want him around. Or, he could stop wallowing in the worst-case scenario and just get the food cooked. His body clock said it was late afternoon by then, and the fish would take a while. Surely Grimmjow would come back before it was time to sleep.

He had to.

* * *

Grimmjow didn’t return by the time the fish was ready.

He didn’t return after Ichigo ate his share, and he didn’t return after he’d cleaned up. Hours ticked by with painful slowness, and in trying not to freak out that he’d been abandoned, Ichigo muffled the worry in his head with an intense—and honestly bizarre—round of housekeeping. Yuzu often swore by the healing powers of stress-cleaning everything in sight, and he figured she’d know her shit. So with the help of Hands and a few buckets, he got to work shaking out the nest of furs and fluffing them back up, scrubbing all of the metal campfire tools and changing the water over in the washing and drinking buckets. Ichigo even cleaned Hands itself: rubbing the leathery skin down with his soap and scrubbing with an old scrap of cloth he found that felt as stiff as canvas. Lastly, he squirted most of his least-favourite lotion onto them and rubbed it in, even around the cuticles.

“You gotta look after yourself,” Ichigo told Hands with a small huff of laughter, watching it flap around the cavern like a happy bat. “Though if you’re as old as Grimmjow says, you’re looking pretty damn good.”

Finally, he cleaned his own clothes again, fuming that Kon had thrown out his spare pairs of underwear for whatever heinous filthy reason only he could comprehend. Probably to fit in that big tube of lubricant. Cheeks burning as he ran the washboard, wearing his open coat for modesty even though nobody was around, Ichigo wondered exactly what his own motives really were when it came to Grimmjow. Had he just been objectifying him the entire time? Trying to flirt his way to a positive reaction? Hell, he probably leaned toward women anyway. Or was just completely indifferent to any kind of flirting or attraction. There were people like that; he’d read about it. A bit disheartening, but whatever. It wasn’t like he’d had a chance anyway. Grimmjow was amazing as a demon. He powered hundreds of gems and made harpoons and had a cool pair of spirit hands that could rip people to pieces. He had an entire mountain to live in. Ichigo was…good company and entertainment value at best. The balance was hardly equal.

“Maybe I do have issues about being human,” Ichigo grunted to his jeans as he thrust them under the soapy water for what felt like the hundredth time. “So what? Everyone has issues about something. Four years of war and those are my only mental health problems? I did all right. Mostly. The nightmares sucked for a couple years.” Predictably, his jeans had nothing to add to that.

Hanging everything out to dry on the limp stretch of clothesline he’d anchored between craggy rocks, tired from all his work and feeling a bit stupid, Ichigo tossed another piece of wood on the fire and rubbed his sore, spongy fingers. There was nothing else to do except sit and wait. The fish was warming on a stone beside the campfire, right in view if Grimmjow came back. Ichigo felt like a worried housewife and hated it so intensely that he thought about kicking the stupid fish into the fire. Annoyed at himself and all the stupid freaking out he was doing, he brushed his teeth, ripped off his coat and got into the nest of freshly laid pelts.

If he couldn’t stand waiting another fucking instant, he’d just go to sleep. Oblivion had to be better than fretting like some kind of insecure moron.

Slamming his eyes shut with a massive scowl, Ichigo willed his brain to shut the fuck up and make him unconscious.

Grimmjow would be back soon.

There was absolutely _nothing_ to be worried about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pour one out for shawlong


	5. Chapter 5

Against all odds, Ichigo’s mental order must have worked for a while, because when he opened his eyes next he felt loose-limbed and drowsy. The fire was painting yellow-black shadows against the cavern wall, still hungrily eating the wood he’d laid out earlier. A plume of pale grey smoke trailed up into the ceiling, sucked away through a crack in the stone. Ichigo sleepily wondered if it led to an overhead cavern somewhere. There was no flash of blue anywhere and there was nobody sitting by the campfire. The fish was still laid out on the stone. A ripple of true worry touched Ichigo’s stomach.

Something had to be wrong. Maybe Spiderhana had come back, maybe gotten through the barriers somehow? Or he’d just left completely, or gone to fuck Byakuya up for some indecipherable reason. At the very least Ichigo should get up and go look. Except he’d washed his clothes and they were all still soaking wet, god, he was such a shortsighted idiot—

Something inhaled softly behind his head.

Rolling over carefully, trying to move the fur as little as possible, Ichigo turned and came nose to nose with Grimmjow’s sleeping face.

Relief almost made him laugh, but the wonder of seeing Grimmjow not only asleep but willingly tucked up alongside him won out. He was on top of the furs, still bare of anything except his voluminous dark blue pants. His pale hand was curled loosely under his chin, his glossy teal claws reflecting firelight. Nothing else glittered or shone on him; no necklaces, no cuffs or earrings or decorations of any kind. His hair still trailed messy and loose across his brow, long enough to touch the corner of one closed eye. Against his better judgement, Ichigo shifted closer. Not to touch, but just…to see.

He looked so unguarded. So strangely young. The ferocity and snappy humour was gone, and in its wake was a trusting sort of quietness that made Ichigo’s throat hurt to see. Had he looked the same the night before, when he’d rested his head on Ichigo’s heart and fallen asleep making sure he was still alive? How fucking alone did Grimmjow feel to want to do that? It made Ichigo want to reach out and—but hell, he couldn’t. Definitely shouldn’t. So he laid there instead, breathing in the air Grimmjow softly breathed out, and wondered what the fuck he was going to do when the time came for him to go home and leave the Spirit Society behind.

Because whatever was going to unfold there, it wasn’t his home. It never could be.

Ichigo was grappling with the pang of sadness that gave him when Grimmjow rubbed his nose into the fur and made himself sneeze a little. His eyes opened slowly; cloudy at first, unfocused. He knuckled his eye lazily and blinked until he was looking straight at Ichigo from a distance of only a couple of inches away. Their noses were nearly grazing.

“Did I just spit on you?” Grimmjow asked, his voice still rough with sleep. Ichigo nodded silently. “Sorry.” His black hand reached up and rubbed at his lips and cheek like it was nothing. When he seemed satisfied, the hand only withdrew as far as the side of Ichigo’s neck. “Better?”

“Yeah,” Ichigo whispered. He felt really warm. “Where’d you go off to?”

“Up the mountain. Didn’t want you to see me for a bit.” Grimmjow’s mouth held something unfamiliar in its downturned curve. “Had to think.”

“Listen, I’m sorry I just dropped that on you the way I did. I feel like shit about it.”

“Don’t know an easy way to say nobody noticed my tribe was slaughtered.” The hand on his neck squeezed lightly, then slid away. Ichigo immediately missed it. He said nothing as Grimmjow sat up and scratched the base of one blue-tipped horn, eyes lighting on the fish by the fire. “You catch that for me?”

“I went out empty-handed and came back with it, so sure,” Ichigo yawned, sitting up. The fur fell down around his hips but he didn’t bother to cover himself further. He seemed to be naked more often than he was dressed inside that mountain, and truth be told he was kind of getting used to it. “Eat it before it dries out.”

“You don’t want any?”

“I already ate while you were gone.” The reply made Grimmjow wince a little as he approached the fire, his ankles cracking as he sat down again and grabbed the fish. He looked back at Ichigo over the flames.

“Shouldn’t’ve left you on your own like that.” Lowering his head, he took a quick, careful bite of his cooling meal. “Sorry.”

“I can take care of myself,” Ichigo replied, swallowing back his immediate selfish urge to agree. “When there’s no giant spider-women around, anyway. I didn’t thank you for saving my ass back there.” He received no reply to that other than a half-shrug; with a huge mouthful of fish occupying him it seemed Grimmjow had other things on his mind. Ichigo reached for his bag and rummaged through it absently while he ate, doing a quick inventory of his belongings for want of anything else to fill the silence with.

As relieved as he was that Grimmjow was back and not angry with him, Ichigo knew he had to address Byakuya’s veiled order to return in the morning for the council, or whatever it was when the tribe leaders all turned up for a meeting. It didn’t sound like something that happened very often, which at least meant that he was being taken seriously. Ichigo knew he couldn’t pass up the chance. He also knew he didn’t have the heart to pressure Grimmjow to go.

“There’s a meeting tomorrow at the tengu estate,” Ichigo said, his eyes on the contents of his bag. “Byakuya is summoning some kind of council of all the tribe leaders so I can tell them about what I think is going on with Aizen.” Hearing a scrape of movement on stone, Ichigo added in a rush, “He wants you to come as well. You’ll never have a better chance to tell them all—”

“No.” Grimmjow spat a fishbone into the fire and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll take you back there but that’s it. Like hell I’m setting foot inside those walls. The day I do that, I might as well shove an apple in my mouth and hop right in their stupid ceremonial fire.”

“I thought you said yourself that the tengu tribe was okay.”

“Yeah, from a distance,” Grimmjow said with emphasis. He was actively gnawing on the fish’s roasted head at that point. “Meaning they don’t hound me at my fucking boundary wards like Unohana was doing all afternoon. You got some kinda love potion on you? Pheromones? I’ve never seen her go so apeshit trying to get at someone.”

“If I had that I wouldn’t be using it on Unohana, for one thing. Maybe I’m just delicious.”

“This fish is delicious. I’ve never caught this kind before. Some kind of trout? You did all right, human.” Grimmjow took another obscene bite of its head, angling it further up the back of his mouth where some sharper molars were hidden. Yikes. Ichigo waited for the crunching to subside a little before he spoke.

“I didn’t actually catch the fish myself. Ukitake gave it to me.”

The look of betrayal that earned him was unexpectedly hilarious, mostly because Grimmjow almost choked on the fish he was trying to cram down his neck. He pulled it out and stared at the mangled corpse in horror. It was already three-quarters eaten.

“Calm down,” Ichigo snorted. “I already ate it and didn’t die.”

“Not fuckin’ yet!” Grimmjow started gargling the drinking water. Realising he had nowhere to spit it out, he got up and dashed over to the side passage that led to the grove and jet-streamed it there. Ichigo rolled his eyes as he walked back picking his teeth with his claws.

“I think it was partly a bribe so you’d stop trying to stab one of his clan members. Kiyone?”

“It’s touching that you think I’d bother to learn their names.” Hands blew into existence over Grimmjow’s head just in time to catch the flung remains of the fish. Clapping it between its palms, there was a small rain of blue sparks that erupted from the contact and then it was gone. No ash rained down, or bones. Ichigo couldn’t figure out if it had incinerated or eaten it. “So this big meeting of assholes you want to go to, how the fuck is Ukitake going to make it there? I know he’s some hotshot ningyo in his tribe. They gonna put him in a big bowl of water? Push him right up to the table?”

“I don’t know.” Another thought struck him. “How’s Unohana going to make it inside without getting her big spider ass jammed in the doorway? She’s gotta be another tribe leader.” Maybe he was presuming things but with all of the Gotei 13 captains so far being leaders, it stood to reason they all were a different species of youkai. Kitsune, tengu, ningyo, spider…woman, and Grimmjow representing the oni clan of demons. Ichigo was sure of one thing though: he didn’t want to know what the fuck Kenpachi was, if he even existed in the Spirit Society. Somehow it seemed too refined for him.

Flashbacks of Unohana’s crazy eyes flew back to Ichigo in a rush. Maybe not.

“You trust that tengu to keep you safe under his roof amongst all those freaks? It’s suicide. Whole thing’s suicide.” Grimmjow’s expression darkened. “You’re not going into that.”

“I’m not asking your permission for this,” Ichigo said flatly. “It’s not just about the past anymore, Grimmjow. I’m really worried about what it all might mean. I’d feel a lot better if you were with me in there, but it’s not going to stop me. It can’t. If Aizen is still planning something then he’s going to annihilate anyone who opposes him. He already did it to your tribe.”

“That’s real nice of you, but the gem you’re wearing won’t heal you if your head gets ripped off. Worry less about Aizen, who hasn’t even been seen in almost a hundred years, and more about the assholes you’re trying to protect suddenly deciding they want roast human for dinner.” Thumping back down in front of the fire, Grimmjow glared over at him. “Why do you even care about them? The tengu woman I could understand, but the others? What’d they ever do for you?”

“Why do you care about me?” Ichigo countered. “What’d I ever do for you?”

“Who says I care about you?”

“I do.” The hurt dead centre in his chest went ignored. “It’s not about whether they can do something for me or not. I can help so I’m going to help.”

Grimmjow’s eyes darkened. “There’s more to it than that. You’re fuckin’ convinced they’re nice people. Fair. Good. Honourable. Unohana tried to kill you today and it’s like it didn’t even shake your faith in her one bit, ‘cause you’re ready to see her again tomorrow like nothing even happened. Are you that crazy?”

“People trying to kill me isn’t an instant disqualification on my friendship,” Ichigo shrugged, ignoring the way Grimmjow’s face twisted with contempt. “You already know that you and the others exist in my world as well. I know it’s not the same, that there’s different rules and you’re not all mirror images of each other, but you’re pretty similar. And I know those people. I’ve fought alongside them and I’ve fought against them. They’re worth saving, Grimmjow. Just like you are.” Ichigo watched Grimmjow grit his teeth and finally look away, fixing his glare on the flames instead of Ichigo’s face. It wasn’t clear if he was struggling with an internal conflict or simply angry about the entire conversation.

Truth was, Ichigo meant every word of it, and he couldn’t spare Grimmjow’s feelings of bitterness and pain when he spoke. The selfishness and ignorance of the tribes was awful, that was true. They’d conditioned themselves over the years to only take care of themselves and their own, to the point that they were leaving themselves wide open for attack in a way that ensured no allies would ever come to aid them. The demons were just as guilty, scorning the others and keeping to their mountain. Grimmjow was just a product of that, only it had left him completely and utterly alone. How could he want that life over—over friends? Allies, at the very least. People who knew his name and that he was alive. People he could protect too, the way he was so damn ready to protect Ichigo.

Well, it didn’t matter, he thought, laying back down and pulling the furs back up to his shoulders. Grimmjow was stubborn and full of spite toward the other tribes and there was nothing he could do to change that. It was a waste of energy to even try, and he needed to get a decent sleep before tomorrow. Having Grimmjow there wasn’t essential. In fact, he’d probably just set off everyone’s temper and start a fight if he did show up.

Rolling onto his side, putting his back to the flames, Ichigo closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. It was made a little difficult by the prick of his ears to every breath and whisper of fabric as Grimmjow moved, but he did his best to tune it out. The fire spat a few sparks and crackled with heat now and again. Listening to it for long minutes, muscles unwinding one by one, Ichigo felt himself slowly lulled back into a true sleep.

“I’ll go with you to the conclave.”

Ichigo’s eyes snapped open. He rolled over and sat up to see Grimmjow walking toward him, scratching at his messy hair. His face was not a picture of happiness.

“For real?”

“Yeah. But if a single one of them fucks with me I’m gonna fuck right back.” Grimmjow threw himself down into the fur alongside Ichigo and put his back to him. He didn’t bother to cover himself up. “I’m only going because of you. Stupid sentimental asshole.”

Ichigo smiled at his naked back. He couldn’t help it. “You’re my favourite, you know.”

“I fuckin’ better be.” He sounded so mad about it that Ichigo almost laughed. Instead, he bit down on his lip and budged over until he was spooned up against Grimmjow’s back. “Fuck off.”

“No.” Daringly, Ichigo slid an arm over his side and pressed his forehead into light blue strands of hair. The skin under his was still flushed warm from the campfire. “Thanks, Grimmjow. I know this is a huge deal for you. I promise, I won’t let any of them treat you badly. I’ll kick the shit out of them if they try.”

A sardonic snort followed that, but Grimmjow didn’t shove him away. “Yeah, I’d believe it. Now shut up and sleep.”

“Okay.”

Definitely not mirror images of each other, Ichigo thought with quiet delight, squeezing Grimmjow a little and finding no resistance to his affection. Maybe after the afternoon Grimmjow had he didn’t mind a little bit of mostly-platonic hugging on top of a huge mound of furs. But Grimmjow deciding to go somewhere and do something he was violently opposed to just because Ichigo really wanted him to? There was no way to even pretend his arrancar counterpart would entertain the idea. Then again, he would have probably rushed in with guns blazing already and been brutally murdered by Aizen.

Maybe they were all just products of the land that raised them. Arrancar, demon, shinigami, youkai. Similar and so different. As he drifted off to sleep with Grimmjow caught in the half-trap of his arms, Ichigo hoped to hell that the meeting—the conclave—made a difference.

* * *

“Can’t fuckin’ believe I’m doing this,” Grimmjow said as the tengu estate came into view through the trees. He was looking a little ill. “If my clan was still around I’d be anathema to them for just going inside on purpose. If they didn’t kill me for it first.”

“If you need to squat and breathe into a paper bag—”

“Shut up. I’m just saying this is unnatural. If it wasn’t the tengu hosting this thing I wouldn’t even be here.” Standing at the tree-line just before the branches gave way to the short bridge before the entrance, Grimmjow jammed a clawed thumb against his temple and grimaced. “They’re all in there, human. I can feel them. We’re late.”

“We didn’t get an official invite with the time on it.” Ichigo shrugged. “Doesn’t matter; they can’t start without us. I’ll go in first and introduce myself if you need a minute. I doubt you want to stand around for that part anyway.” He was a little gratified to see the conflict on Grimmjow’s face at that, warring between wanting to stay by his side and needing to collect himself. “Don’t worry. Nothing can happen in five minutes with Byakuya, Rukia and Kon there. Remember how terrifying Kon can be?”

“I know you’re making fun of me, you little asshole,” Grimmjow said, but after studying his face for a moment he exhaled a sharp breath. “Fine. Go in. Gotta check a few things with Hands anyway.” Nodding, Ichigo took a step away, turning for the moat-like stream with its tiny lit lanterns bobbing on the surface. Grimmjow grabbed him quickly before he could leave, brushing down his coat, unbuttoning it and making sure the gem was proudly displayed. Cupping it in his black hand, he stared at it intently for a moment before buffing it with the manacle-like patch of black on his other forearm. For an instant Ichigo saw the blue slashes in it glow like sudden gasflame, and then the gem was matching the luminescence. A swirling blue light began to penetrate the dull black orb from within. When Grimmjow let the gem go, it stayed glowing. “That oughta do it.”

“How’d you do that?” Ichigo asked, staring down at the glow. Even through his t-shirt it felt warm. “I thought you said you didn’t make this.”

“I didn’t. Shawlong made it. Normally I couldn’t charge another demon’s gem with my own power, but he made this one different. Wanted me to be able to keep it going without him.” Grimmjow’s mouth flattened as he touched the gem with his fingertips. He cleared his throat. “Okay, beat it. Go make nice with the youkai.” The shove he gave Ichigo to get him moving wasn’t gentle at all.

Trying to remind himself that Grimmjow would definitely keep his word and wouldn’t bail like he had the day before, Ichigo walked over the bridge without looking back, straining his senses for anything that might give away the presence of another youkai. There was nothing on either side or up ahead, just the open gates of Byakuya’s estate. Even Seaweed wasn’t lurking around the place. A little nervous, he wrapped his fingers around the glowing gem and let some of its reassuring warmth take the edge off.

“Please God, let them all be wearing clothes,” Ichigo whispered to the strange star-dotted sky. Following the same path to the main house as he’d taken with Rukia, tense despite all his reassurances to Grimmjow, he ascended the steps to the large entrance doors and knocked with the full force of his fist. Jamming his hands into his coat pockets, Ichigo tried not to fidget as he waited for a servant to open the door.

The door didn’t open for a long minute. In fact, there was a rustling sort of sound going on behind the heavy wood. The door thumped in its frame a little. Something swore.

“Hello?” Ichigo called. “Is the door stuck? I can—”

“This is highly irregular!” Shouted an irritating and familiar voice. “My role as Kuchiki-sama’s servant is to greet all guests! Move out of the way!” The door thumped again.

“Chappy helps!” Squeaked a cheerful, moderately deranged sounding voice. “Chappy is going to greet the human for Rukia-chan!”

“Rukia-chan?” Ichigo repeated to himself, baffled. “Guess she really did work on her magic. Gross.” Morbidly curious, he shoved the door from his side with all his might. If he left the servants arguing with each other Grimmjow was bound to show up and dismember them. “I’m coming in!”

“Wah!” Chappy squealed as the doors burst open, and Ichigo had the dubious honour of seeing a white-furred humanoid thing with a rabbit’s head crash straight into Seaweed and send them both sliding over the polished floor. “Chappy is supposed to help! Seaweed-chan, stop touching my tail!”

“I’m not touching it! It’s touching me! You uncouth, misshapen excuse for a—”

“Chappy is an independent rabbit with enormous self-worth! Chappy will kill you for this insult!”

A fight immediately broke out; not a dignified exchange of punches, but a full-on throwdown tussle on the floor complete with biting and flailing legs. Ichigo half expected a cartoonish cloud of dust to surround them as they rolled around in the foyer screaming and crying. Kon came running down the side hallway in time to take in the entire scene. He looked thrilled.

“Get him in the sea-kidneys! Oh hey, Ichigo,” Kon greeted cordially, then turned back toward the hallway. “Nee-san! It’s attempting murder again! Also Ichigo’s here!” Jumping onto the writhing bundle of weird magical aggression, Kon grabbed Chappy by the ears and started pulling in an attempt to separate the two. “Ichigo, grab Seaweed!”

“Hell no! I’m not touching that slimy leaf with my bare hands.” He’d bathed again especially for the conclave that morning; he didn’t want to wind up smelling like brine and ass so soon. He kicked the servant a little instead. “Hey. Show some dignity.” In an appropriately feral manoeuvre for a piece of weed stuck to the floor, a deformed hand grabbed his boot and started pulling. “Ah, shit, gross! Get off!”

Running down the hall at full speed, almost slipping in her dainty house slippers, Rukia slung back her beautiful trailing silk sleeve and punched Seaweed in the face so hard he puffed away into green smoke. Her cheeks were crimson with emotion and her fists were still clenched when she looked at Ichigo, who backed the fuck up in pure survival mode.

“Long time no see,” he tried when she didn’t say anything. Kon was just standing there like a gnome, offering zero help. “You look stressed out.”

A perfectly manicured dark eyebrow twitched, and Chappy evaporated on the spot. Straightening up, brushing her sleeves into place, Rukia took a deep breath and gestured to the hall ahead. Ichigo felt like he’d wandered into a lion’s den, and he didn’t mean Kon.

“Kurosaki-san, please follow me into the main hall. A table has been prepared and the tribe leaders await you inside. Is the demon to be honouring us with his presence today?” The words were practised, polite and utterly lacking in warmth. “Nii-sama will order the placements to be arranged accordingly.” When he didn’t immediately respond, her eyes narrowed. “Or do you need a private audience with him to discuss this as well?”

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Ichigo said guiltily. “I didn’t mean to exclude you like that! But there’s things from my world that haven’t happened here yet, and—”

“And I can’t handle it?” she said hotly. “Me, Kuchiki Rukia, who was thrown into a dungeon for you? Who stood between you and my own noble brother, who can barely tolerate me at the best of times, and openly defied him?”

“It wasn’t about trust! I’d trust you with my life! I _have_ trusted you with my life—”

“Right, this wonderful paragon of friendship in your world who shares my likeness.” She crossed her arms, chin jutted out. “Would you have thrown her aside like you did to me yesterday? Ingrate!” While Ichigo struggled to think of a way to defend himself, her eyes dropped to the gem. They lost a little of their fire. “Why is it glowing like that?”

“Grimmjow charged it up in case any crazy tengu women tried to kill me,” Ichigo said limply. “You could probably punch me if you wanted. Get it out of your system.” When she just glared up at him again, he winced. “I’m sorry about yesterday, I really am. But there’s some things you shouldn’t hear about from me.”

Voices were filtering to them from the vast room ahead. Grabbing his coat sleeve, Rukia dragged him into an alcove out of sight of the doorway. Kon followed like an obedient puppy, but it was Ichigo’s back he climbed up until he could perch on his head.

“You mean about Hisana,” Rukia said in low, hushed tones. Her eyes darted to the hall and back again. “That’s the name you spoke yesterday. I asked everyone in the estate and they keep saying they’ve never heard of her, but they’re lying. I can feel it. Who is she, Ichigo?”

“Yeah, Ichigo, who is she?” Kon asked crossly. “Even I’ve never heard this name before, and I’ve been telling nee-san about how close we are for the last three days. What gives?”

“She’s—look, Byakuya had a wife once. Kuchiki Hisana. And she’s dead.” At Rukia’s shocked inhale, Ichigo tried not to squirm as comprehension filled her expression. How much could he say before he ruined things? “See why it’s Byakuya’s business? I think he mourned her so much he couldn’t be reminded of her ever again. It’s the same in my world, and I used it against him.” Don’t ask how, don’t ask how, don’t ask how, he thought nervously. “Anyway, Grimmjow is coming today and I should really get in there—”

“Forgive me, Ichigo,” Rukia said unhappily. She folded a neat, perfect bow that made her pretty hair ornaments swing. “I pried where I shouldn’t have. Nii-sama is an intensely private man, I—you were only showing him respect when you had me sent away. I understand now.” She straightened and pressed her hands to her pale cheeks. “I was only thinking of myself. You’re a very good person for thinking of his feelings like that.”

“That’s Ichigo for you,” Kon said proudly and completely obliviously, using his ear as a step to clamber down onto his shoulder. The sudden tug at his back said Kon had slid into his hood. “Always trying to protect others!”

“Right,” Rukia replied softly. She still looked like someone had slapped her. “Come on then. I’d say be on your best behaviour in there, but even they’re having trouble doing that much. There have been a few…colourful last minute additions and changes to the guest list.”

Oh, no. “Is it Aizen?”

“No, but Ichimaru Gin is inside and he keeps looking at me with that stupid fox grin of his.”

“He won’t be grinning for long,” Ichigo said, thinking of who was still outside in the woods. “Is uh…is Unohana-san here?”

“The jorougumo? Yes, she’s inside with the no-tribe.”

“The what?” Ichigo asked but Rukia was dragging him by the sleeve again, this time toward the double doors ahead. They were held open with small ornately carved raven doorstops. Talk about a house mascot. “Is she naked?”

“How inappropriate!” Rukia cried, but there was a sly tug in the corner of her mouth. “She’s too old for you Ichigo, but I concede she is very beautiful. Are things not going well with your demon lover? I could help you. Tengu are renowned for their elegant beauty and demure courting skills.”

“Forget I asked.”

“If you show him a little bare skin on your inner wrist while you’re reaching for things, he’ll picture the rest of you the same way.”

“I don’t think that works when he’s already seen me totally naked.”

“You know what they say about giving up the milk for free.”

“Shut up,” Ichigo muttered, worried she was right. “Besides, there’s nothing to look at by comparison. He’s godlike, Rukia. The muscles alone—”

“I’m too straight for this,” Kon interrupted from behind Ichigo’s head. “Get your dick out of your hand, Ichigo. There’s introductions to be made! Nee-san, lead on.”

Right. No time to get distracted by Grimmjow’s muscles. Trying his best to smother the nervous flutter in his stomach, Ichigo followed Rukia into the great hall where the powerful youkai tribe leaders of the Spirit Society awaited—and promptly stopped short.

He’d expected solemn silence. He’d expected judging glares. He’d even kind of expected to be attacked. Instead what he walked into was…a tiny nub-horned Yachiru, younger and more feral than he remembered her being, perched high on the wall in between the spooky black wings of Byakuya’s tengu ancestor. The very old, revered, amputated wings of a really powerful tengu. Clinging to the wall with clawed hands and feet, she hissed like an animal to reveal tiny little tusk-like canines. She had tiny little bat wings that Ichigo found unreasonably adorable for what was clearly a crazy little monster. Surrounding the display were a scattered gang of youkai of varying shapes, sizes and colours, all trying to get close enough to grab her. The fire in the hearth below was whipping and spitting like it was trying to get at her too.

“Does anybody have a net? If we can snare her in it we could drag her down,” a woman with strawberry blonde hair and pricked triangle ears atop her head suggested. The ornate comb holding her hair up in a loose knot was pearl white and exposed a line of soft fur down the back of her neck, where it disappeared into a deep pink and white kimono. When she turned her head slightly, a long scar cutting across her face came into view. Ichigo gaped at Matsumoto Rangiku. Beside her a short, white-haired boy with a shaggy tail sticking out of his hakama was scratching behind his own ear with a paw-like hand.

“There’s too much risk of pulling her down into that fire,” Toshirou said gravely, but a little like he’d been thinking the same thing. “Clearly the tengu spirits are unhappy with her presence there. Look at the movements of the flames. There’s no breeze in here to move them like that. I could freeze the wall until she fell off, but the fire is too hot for me to get close.”

“Ordinarily I could climb up there, but I’m really not dressed for the occasion,” Unohana was saying regretfully to an extremely ill-looking Ukitake, off to the left of the performance. She was two-legged—and relievingly two-armed—just like her companion, wearing a beautiful many-layered black kimono that fell heavy and full around her, giving her an appearance she was larger than she appeared. Ichigo couldn’t help but think of spiderweb as he looked at the long, grey-dipped silk sleeves. Their eyes met across the hall and she smiled, turning away demurely so that her unbound hair slid like a curtain between them. “Perhaps our newcomer might tempt her down. Preferably before Zaraki and Kuchiki kill each other.” She gestured with one milk-pale hand to…oh, god.

What in the absolute side-fucked hell was Kenpachi?

He was…big. Real big. Even sitting lazily on a cushion by the long table Ichigo could see it. He was tall, and horned, and wild, and _red_. Not a fiery bright red, but the rust-coloured red of drying blood. The only parts of his body that weren’t dyed that colour were the two pitted black horns that erupted from his forehead, curving back like thick spikes to join his hair. It didn’t have any semblance of his old perfectly lacquered style; this fell down his back like a landslide of knots and braids. The eyes he had glued on Byakuya were the ancient yellow of pure amber. He looked like Satan in a couple of ragged leather straps and shredded brown hakama. Kenpachi grinned up at his host with teeth glinting like jagged glass.

“What’s the matter, Kuchiki? You look like you’re gonna moult all over the floor.” Ichigo swore inwardly; Byakuya’s fan was in his hand and his blue-tipped wings were up like hackles. Not that Kenpachi gave a shit. “You want her down? Go get her down. She can take you.”

“Nii-sama is about to burst a vein,” Rukia whispered, fumbling to catch Ichigo’s wrist. She looked morbidly fascinated. “Zaraki doesn’t even care!”

“What is he?” Ichigo asked under his breath, grabbing her hand right back. “Some kind of devil?”

“Who knows,” she replied softly. “Zaraki is the leader of no-tribe. His clan is one of the largest because he adopts anyone who prove themselves to him. A sort of mismatched family of outcasts. Zaraki probably doesn’t even know what he is.” She pointed carefully to the back of the hall. “See up the back there? The red-haired one with the black ink across his face. He’s no-tribe too. Inuyoukai, I think, not wolf like Hitsugaya-san. Definitely not cat, or Matsumoto-san would have flirted with him by now.”

“Renji?” Ichigo said, his whole chest unwinding. “Renji has been here all along? And he’s a dog?” Maybe it had been naive to assume they’d all look like their bankai. Rukia was wind and fire instead of ice and Byakuya was wind and…snobbery, mostly. There wasn’t much of a rhyme or reason to it that he could figure out. Spiderhana, the jorougumo as Rukia had called her, didn’t make sense either. “Can I go talk to him?”

“If you want to get your head bitten off, sure,” Rukia said dismissively. “He’s unerringly rude and prefers to lurk away from all of us petty nobles. Zaraki isn’t a true tribe leader by any means but we can’t afford to insult him, so we usually end up with one or two of the riffraff turning up to glare at us.”

“Riffraff?” Ichigo repeated, staring at Rukia. A twitch of his hand shook his wrist free. “And just who the hell are you? That’s no way to talk about anyone, let alone Renji.” But Rukia just frowned. There wasn’t a trace of recognition in her eyes. Unsettled and uneasy, he looked around for Grimmjow. Still nothing. He fished Kon out of his hood and passed him to Rukia, but he just jumped right back in.

“No, I’m angry in solidarity for our good friend Renji,” Kon said staunchly. “Besides, this is where the action is gonna be and I want my front-row seat. Go get that midget down from the wall!”

“How? The heat of the fireplace is going to melt me before I can get anywhere near her.” Up on the wall, fingers jammed into old stone, Yachiru snarled as Rangiku waved a small handkerchief at her like a matador with a really tiny white flag. “I suppose I can’t do any worse than they already are.” He looked around at Byakuya, trying to catch his gaze, but he wasn’t looking at anything except Kenpachi. “Shit, okay.” He headed over to the table, hoping silently that if Kenpachi decided to pick up the enormous fucking axe on the floor beside him and swing it that the healing gem did its job.

Byakuya finally did look up as Ichigo approached them, but his gaze was as cold as stone. Kenpachi on the other hand reached over and grabbed a handful of his coat hem and yanked, catching his entire lower jaw in one rusty-red hand like he was pulling him in for a kiss. Ichigo felt a hard spike of panic and then nothing but abject horror as a tongue licked a stripe up his face from cheek to temple. Kenpachi’s tongue! On! His! Face!

“Tastes like it’s succulent underneath. Fucking delicious humans.” His eyes were maliciously amused, without a single drop of the challenge to his strength they usually held. “You got a name, little cutlet?”

“Kurosaki Ichigo.” Spit was drying on his face in a long, cooling streak. Ichigo felt like he was losing his mind. Behind him, Kon was vibrating with muffled laughter. Kenpachi just snorted.

“Cutlet it is.” His head was almost thrown away and Ichigo had never been so happy to be dismissed. “Now why the fuck am I here? No sake, nothing to eat, and a baby human for entertainment. Rather watch Yachiru climb Mount Sparrow over there.” Rubbing his cheek on his sleeve, Ichigo looked up in time to see Byakuya’s nostrils flare dangerously. His black fan snapped open as he turned on his heel sharply, heading around the table toward Yachiru. He looked like he was going for the nuclear option. Fuck. Glancing back at Kenpachi, he saw a black-clawed hand reach casually for the axe. Goading Byakuya was the goal, Ichigo realised, bolting around to get in his furious pale face before he could do anything violent.

“Stop, stop, stop,” Ichigo said, planting both hands on Byakuya’s chest to stave him off. Outrage crossed his features and his mouth opened, so Ichigo covered it. “Oh god, gross. Just let them try to get her down without hurting her! Kenpachi just wants a fight. He always wants a fight. Don’t give him one. He’s…I want to say he’s not that bad but—”

“The no-tribe are worse than demons,” Byakuya said frostily, yanking Ichigo’s hand away. One shove pushed him back three feet across the floorboards. “And if you touch me again I will throw you to them, protector or no. Where is the demon you spoke of? It was a poor idea to come alone.”

“He’s not alone,” said Kon from his hood, but his tone exactly full of confidence anymore. “But look! Treebeard over there is trying to get the kid down.” Sure enough, a man with a long, wavy brown ponytail spotted with flowers was reaching for her with an arm that extended like a sakura tree branch. Tiny little blossoms were budding and blooming on it as it grew long enough to reach her hissing face. His expression was pleasantly patient, almost doting as he teased the tendril-like branch around her face, making her bat at it.

“Kyouraku,” Ichigo said, relieved beyond all rights. He’d fix it. They hadn’t made him Captain-Commander of Soul Society for nothing. That guy got things done.

Yachiru hadn’t gotten the memo. She clamped her jaws on the delicate branch and snapped it in half. The flower she spat to the floor landed with a wet slap. Pulling his arm back down to its original size, Kyouraku stared at the missing tip of his finger in bewilderment.

“I’ve tried nothing and I fear I’m out of ideas.” Turning to shrug at Byakuya, his warm brown eyes lit on Ichigo. “What if we used him as bait? What rabid child wouldn’t want a mid-morning snack?” And like that, Ichigo was caught in arms as hard and unyielding as old oak. That flower kimono wasn’t hiding shit; Kyouraku was strong.

“Ah, perhaps not,” Ukitake said weakly, mopping his sweating brow with the edge of his blue sleeve. He looked like he was going to faint. “It’s terribly uncivilised to kill the guest of honour.”

“Get off me,” Ichigo grated, mule-kicking backwards into legs like iron. “Asshole, she’s always bribed by sweets, not meat.” He tilted his head up at the girl and whistled. “Hey, Yachiru! Wanna go find the kitchens and eat all of Byakuya’s desserts? I bet he’s got all that fancy noble shit.”

Yachiru blinked at him owlishly, her eyes regaining a little of their cognisance. Her tiny nose wrinkled.

“I hate fruit!” Her voice was the same bright mischief he’d always heard, and all of a sudden Ichigo missed that kid hard. Around him, eyes swung and held in surprise.

“I’m not talking about fruit,” Ichigo said, shrugging out of Kyouraku’s loosened grip. “I mean the good stuff. Honey and pastries and red bean jam. But you gotta get off the wings first.”

“But I want them,” she said, stroking her hand over the glossy feathers. Byakuya’s eye twitched hard. “They can be the roof of my new secret playhouse!” With one hand loose from the wall, Yachiru was hanging a little precariously. Ichigo felt his instincts come up and he lurched forward, but the fire beneath her was too hot. In the corner of his eye, Kenpachi was watching him.

“Why don’t you show me the playhouse?” he asked, licking his lips. Yachiru rolled her eyes.

“Because it’s secret, dummy.” Her mouth tucked into a pout. “Where are the cakes?”

“Down here. You just gotta jump real far out so you don’t burn yourself.” She thought that one over with great gravity.

“You’ll catch me? Ken-chan never catches me.”

“I promise,” Ichigo said, trying not to fist-pump outwardly. “One big jump, Yachiru, all the way to me. Can you make it?”

“Sure can! Look out, I’m gonna do it!” Arranging herself outward, hands and feet clinging behind her to the stone of the chimney, she beamed out at Ichigo excitedly. “Here I come!” She sprang like a baby glider, wings out, limbs spread wide like a little pink-haired star.

The fire beneath her exploded, blistering with rage. Ichigo was thrown back with everyone else. Flames like ancient copper fingers lurched out of the hearth like they were alive and _thinking_, reaching out and up to the little girl, hungry and malevolent—

“Hands.”

—and twin blue demonic spirit hands were there in a flash of gasflame light, one to catch the little youkai girl and another to push back the flames with such force that they disappeared into the hearth together, spitting red and blue fire in a tangle of spiritual magic. Ichigo sat up in time to catch a lapful of Yachiru, who thumped down on him with blank, shocked eyes that usually preceded a massive bout of crying in any normal kid. Instead, she just grabbed his healing gem and put it in her mouth. It fell out with a disappointed pop when she realised it was just stone. Drooled on again, Ichigo thought, crushing her against his hammering heart. Distracted by her, he almost missed the reaction of the youkai tribe leaders as Grimmjow entered the room properly.

It was amazing how quickly a room full of casual, colourful whack-jobs could slam their game faces on. Instead of the loitering group full of bad ideas he’d walked into, they united into a cold front of wary, unfriendly strangers in an instant. Uncertain of the reception, Ichigo looked up from the floor and tried to see Grimmjow the way they were.

He was like a stranger himself, Ichigo realised. Grimmjow commanded the room with a loose, predatory ease present in each disinterested flick of his gaze as he noted every youkai in the hall. In his full regalia from shining horn rings to his strapped leather shoes, hair swept into its usual mess of blue strands, he was made incredibly different from the rest of them in a way that didn’t really make sense until Ichigo saw them together. It wasn’t the fangs or the horns—they all had one or the other. It wasn’t the claws, either. It was the fur over his shoulder, the hole through his stomach and the broken mask on his cheek that they stared at in silent, horrified fascination. It was the snarl gathered high on his nose, the disdainful curl of his lip.

A demon, Ichigo thought. Not a youkai. Not like them. A cold and violent killer, a mindless beast who would slaughter them all for a laugh. An enemy.

Grimmjow sneered, scanning across the room. When he spotted Kenpachi at the table, he spat on the shining floor and turned away. Byakuya looked appalled behind his rigid mask. Grimmjow didn’t even notice. He walked straight to Ichigo and rapped him on the head with his knuckles. Yachiru he simply grabbed by the collar of her little purple kosode and lifted her to eye-level.

“You stupid?”

“Nope,” she said, legs swinging.

“Don’t fuck around with ancestrals unless you’ve got a death wish.”

Yachiru seemed to need to think that over. Grimmjow let go so abruptly she nailed Ichigo in the thigh, but it was short-lived when he grabbed Ichigo next, hauling him up to his feet. The hearth spewed sparks behind him, making Hands fall out again. Its usually pristine leathery skin was charred and blistered all over. Ichigo swore and tried to approach but Grimmjow held fast. A single click of his tongue vanished the pair.

“Will Hands be okay?” Ichigo asked.

“Probably. You okay? Face is all red.”

“Yeah. It’s not a burn.”

“If you say so.” Fingers rubbed at the curve of his cheekbones, shockingly cool against his fire-warmed skin. It flamed even hotter when Ichigo glanced over Grimmjow’s shoulder and saw the entire room staring at them like they’d just grown three extra heads and a tail. Even Unohana’s dark eyebrows were in her hair.

The moment was interrupted by the sound of Ukitake hitting the floor in a full faint, and all hell broke loose for the second time.

Looking into Grimmjow’s familiar grumpy, overprotective face, Ichigo was kind of glad.

* * *

“I thought you said Gin was here,” Ichigo hissed to Rukia the next chance he got, which wasn’t until after everyone had laid Ukitake out on some cushions by the table. Kyouraku was actually fanning him with more tree-hands, while Rangiku was leaning over in her cleavage-revealing kimono to sponge his brow with a cooling cloth. It would have all looked really caring if it wasn’t for the mischievous flick of her tail and the hungry way she kept glancing down the folds of his scale-patterned kimono. So much for civilised nobles. Silently, he wondered how she’d come by that disfiguring scar.

After leaving Grimmjow moodily sitting at the head of the table with an oddly non-threatening Unohana crocheting peacefully a little further up, Ichigo had caught Rukia lurking by the rear doors that opened into another part of the garden. It was right where she’d pointed Renji out, except he was gone too.

“Gin was here!” she said defensively. “Maybe he slipped into the garden while I was out. Maybe he’s avoiding you.” Plenty of reasons for him to do that, Ichigo thought, not least of which being how he’d outed his entire plan in the woods yesterday. Maybe he thought the whole thing was a ruse to trap him and not Aizen. He had kidnapped Rukia after all. “Or do you think he just sensed Grimmjow nearby?”

“Could be anything. What happened to Renji? I didn’t even get to say hi.”

“He’s probably barking up a tree somewhere,” Rukia said crossly. “Why do you care about him, anyway? Is he one of your friends in your world?”

“Yeah,” Ichigo said emphatically. “He’s your friend too.”

“Not likely. I’ve only ever seen him at a distance, but he always glowers at me so I glower right back. To put a common spin on it, I think he might be an asshole.” She shrugged, but there was a disgruntled sort of frown in the corner of her mouth. “I never make friends. Everyone thinks tengu are stuck-up jerks.”

Something was really off with what Rukia was saying. If Byakuya married Hisana and adopted Rukia, hadn’t she grown up homeless with Renji? Instead, they disliked each other and she barely even knew his name. Renji had grown up in Kenpachi’s no-tribe. What the fuck had gone wrong there? And if that could change, what was stopping Ichigo being completely wrong with his suspicions?

No, he couldn’t be. Things changed, sure, but the bones of the Spirit Society were the same. Their natures were the same. Kenpachi was still a fighty bastard. Byakuya still had his chilly reserve. Ukitake and Kyouraku were nice—mostly. The bait thing probably wouldn’t have gone ahead. But it had shaken Ichigo’s confidence a little, and it only got worse when Ukitake gave a weak smile to everyone and signalled that he was feeling better. Without a word, Byakuya gestured to the neatly lined zabuton cushions at each place on the table. One by one, tengu servants with light brown wings and downcast eyes entered the hall with trays laden with tea and delicate-looking snacks. A huge fruit platter was deposited in the centre of the table right in front of Kenpachi, who rolled his eyes at the spread.

Everyone took their places. Unohana sat around the corner to Grimmjow’s left, with Kenpachi beside her. Grimmjow’s right was empty as the others all seemed to avoid him. Ichigo headed for it, but Yachiru jumped straight onto the zabuton and threw her elbows onto the table, leaving him floundering a little. Everyone stared at him. Ichigo felt like the last one picked for the team.

At the opposite head of the table, Byakuya knelt in seiza and gestured to a position at his right, directly across from Rukia and beside Kyouraku.

“As my guest, Kurosaki Ichigo, you may sit by me for these proceedings.” With everyone’s eyes on him, feeling desperately uncomfortable, Ichigo, wavered and swung towards Byakuya. It wasn’t like he was going far.

A hand slammed down on the table so hard the mountain of pomegranate arils on the fruit platter avalanched into Rangiku’s lap. Everyone went rigid, Ichigo included.

“The human is mine,” Grimmjow said coldly. The hand that had struck the table slowly lifted to reveal a bright blue gem that shone with a brilliant internal light. It was roughly cut, nothing like the one around Ichigo’s neck. “He stays by my side.”

Byakuya’s mouth thinned. “You insult me in my own home by implying I would harm the human? You threaten me with your primitive magic? Ungracious wretch.”

“Call me possessive,” Grimmjow said. “Heard about your interest in the primitive magic around his neck, too. Big shame, what happened to the wife.” Byakuya went white. Rukia gasped loudly.

“You hold your tongue about matters you know nothing about!” she cried, which was pretty rich considering she’d only found out an hour ago. Byakuya looked like someone had slapped him with a two by four. Twice. “Nii-sama was generous in inviting you here—”

“For fuck’s sake, can we just get on with it?” Kenpachi roared. “Cutlet, sit with the fucking demon. Feather shawl, shut up or get out. Kuchiki, tell us why the fuck we’re here in the first place. I got places to be. We all got places to be.”

“I don’t have places to be,” Rangiku shrugged, eating tiny jewel-red seeds out of her lap. Kenpachi glared.

“You shouldn’t fucking be here in the first place, second-string.”

“Well, when the queen’s away, other cats come out to play.” Her smile was beatific, bending the angled scar slashing from her nose to her jaw. “Where’s your excuse, no-tribe?”

“Right beside me,” Kenpachi replied lazily, patting his axe. Rangiku backed right off. Ichigo felt a headache coming on. Walking back to Grimmjow, who was silently signalling to Unohana for something, Ichigo sat down next to him on the floorboards. He didn’t have the heart to kick Yachiru off her zabuton. Interestingly, she handed it over herself, her eyes sparkling. Did he have a fan now? Amused, Ichigo put himself between Unohana and Grimmjow, just in case he pissed Kenpachi off like he had Byakuya. Unbothered by the audience, Yachiru wandered up the table until she found a tray of tiny cakes in front of Toshirou. Taking the entire tray in silence, she returned to her seat and started eating. The small mission distracted everyone long enough that Byakuya got hold of his shit.

“We’re here because this human and his…demon…bring grave tidings for us all.” Byakuya stared down the barrel of the table and right into Grimmjow’s eyes. “If they are to be believed, and that is what we are here to determine, the ryuujin of the dragon clan is plotting an attack to take unrivalled control of the Spirit Society. If he doesn’t slaughter us all first.”

Silence reigned for a brief moment, and Ichigo held his breath. To his endless relief, nobody immediately burst out laughing.

“Aizen Sousuke wants to take over the Spirit Society?” Wolfy Toshirou looked confused. His snow-white ears twitched and swivelled around. “But the tribes have each been autonomous for centuries. There’s nobody to overthrow. What’s to be gained that he doesn’t already have?” He turned to Ichigo and Grimmjow. “What proof is there of these claims?”

“Hardly enough to incriminate Aizen, I’d wager,” Kyouraku said, not unkindly. “The ryuujin is almost as reclusive as the demons. He doesn’t leave his territory, but he’s friendly enough. Very polite. Drinks a lot of tea.”

“Hydration is important,” Ukitake said unnecessarily, already looking a little clammy again. “But our wooden friend here is correct; Aizen bothers nobody. I’m open to an explanation, but this sounds incredibly outlandish based on his reputation alone.” The others muttered similar agreement, save for Kenpachi and Unohana. They were looking thoughtful, though Unohana was busily producing a length of thick white thread from under her sleeve. She bit it off with a snap of neat white teeth and passed it across Ichigo. Grimmjow grabbed it and started making some kind of braid, which Ichigo found damn distracting for such an important moment in the room. Guess he was doing it alone.

Byakuya met his eyes from across the table and nodded faintly. Ichigo allowed himself a single, quick breath.

“I need to tell you all a story from my world. And I need you to listen to all of it.”

The doors behind Ichigo opened with a long creak, and a youkai walked in with quiet, unhurried steps.

“I apologise for my late attendance,” said Tousen Kaname, flickering his gossamer insect wings to settle them. “The eggs in my nest required monitoring. I hope I have not interrupted anything.”

Ichigo blindly grabbed Grimmjow's wrist and squeezed it hard. Fucking _Tousen_. Nobody had even said if he was in the Spirit Society or not! But he was right there, all braids and cornrows, his orange robes flowing to the floor. Pearlescent white eyes stared at him in calm greeting, but Ichigo knew they saw nothing. Beside him, Grimmjow was staring directly at Ichigo without comprehension, but his free hand was reaching into his hidden pocket.

“Welcome,” Byakuya said, unfolding to stand and give a polite bow. “We were somewhat delayed ourselves. I will arrange another place at the table if you’ll—”

Ichigo jumped to his feet, grabbing Yachiru’s metal tray in the same motion. Tiny cakes flew everywhere. One bounced off Unohana’s cheek. Before anyone could react, let alone poor unsuspecting Tousen, Ichigo swung the hard edge of it and nailed the bug youkai straight in the forehead as hard as he could. He went down like a sack of shit, the back of his skull bouncing off the hardwood floor. The impact across his forehead was a raised bloody line. Cries went up around the table. Unohana quietly wiped cream off her cheek. Kenpachi just gave a single crack of laughter.

Breathing hard, Ichigo waited for any movement, tray poised to hit him again. He glanced around the table. “Real sorry, but Tousen is working for Aizen.”

“Says _who?_" Rangiku demanded, hands on her cheeks. Her silvery claws were getting longer. “Tousen has never been anything except noble, and peaceful, and—blind! He likes singing, for goodness sake!”

“I fear the human has mistaken him for somebody else,” Ukitake said grimly. “And again, there is no evidence that Aizen is working against the Spirit Society. Perhaps he should be restrained for the time being.”

“If Ichigo says it, it’s true,” Grimmjow snapped, not even rising from the table. “I trust him more than the lot of you put together, but for some reason he likes you assholes. If he’s suddenly bashing holes in heads, it’s for a good fucking reason.” Finishing up with his knotted thread game, he did something complicated with the blue gem he’d pulled out and looped it into a harness inside the thread. He threw it at Ukitake’s head. “Now put this on, dipshit. You shouldn’t be out of the water in the first place.”

Kyouraku kindly caught the gem before it could bean Ukitake in the face, whistling at the glow of the gem where it dangled off the string. It was a necklace, Ichigo realised. Grimmjow had used Unohana’s thread to weave something to hold it. Bewildered, Ukitake slowly lowered it over his head, tugging his white braid out from beneath it. Tousen forgotten on the floor, everyone watched as the pretty light swirled around Ukitake’s body for an instant and vanished.

“Oh,” the ningyo said, a healthy glow slowly suffusing his features. The gills on his neck fluttered. “I feel as if I’m at my riverbank again. A water gem, is it? Such power, contained in something so small. Thank you, Grimmjow-san.”

Grimmjow just grunted. “Thanks for the fish, I guess.”

“Sure, you eat his food,” Rukia commented jealously, her thin arms crossed. Byakuya spared her a quick glance.

At Ichigo’s feet, Tousen groaned and began to sit up. Panicking, he raised the tray again but a soft hand on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks. Unohana smiled comfortingly until he slowly lowered his arms.

“Unohana-san?”

“Perhaps a gentler method of disarmament would benefit your cause. May I?”

“Uh, sure.” It was like the spider thing had never happened. She just looked like a pretty lady in her layered kimono, her unbound black hair falling almost to her knees. The only difference between his world’s Unohana and this one were the small bumps on her forehead, and the way her lips had turned…kinda blood red?

“Oh, fuck!” Ichigo cried as she bent and bit Tousen on the neck, black veins standing out around her mouth and branching their way down her slender throat. Tousen went as limp as a crushed flower. “Holy shit, she’s killing him!” He cracked her over the head with the tray instead but it did nothing.

“Do not piss her off again,” Grimmjow hissed, grabbing his shoulder in one hand and the tray in the other. Startled by the noise, Kon snorted himself awake and popped out of Ichigo’s hood. Grimmjow punched him in the face. Kon went back in the hood. “Fucking hell, human, warn me when you’re carrying that thing!”

“I forgot about him!” Meanwhile, Unohana was spinning a fuckload of thread out of her sleeves, wrapping Tousen over and over in it like she was making him a custom-built sleeping bag of death. “Hey, uh, is she…?”

“Looks like it,” Grimmjow said, scratching his markings. “Do you like this Tousen guy?”

“Didn’t really know him.”

“He dead in your world?”

“Yeah.”

“Symmetry,” Grimmjow said poetically, not giving a shit. “Hey, Unohana. How long’ll it take you to eat something his size?”

“Mmm, a few days,” she said thoughtfully, hands working overtime. “The venom takes hours to liquefy his insides.”

“Does he have to be alive for that?”

Unohana’s bloody lips curled in a perfect Mona Lisa smile. “Not at all.”

“My turn,” Kenpachi said jovially, getting to his full height and grabbing the axe. From the table Yachiru waved a half-crushed cake like a cheerleader’s pom-pom, her cheeks full of food.

“Why are we killing Tousen?” Rangiku practically wailed at that point, shoving Toshirou. “Do something! Are you all talk? I took you for a man!” Scrambling off the cushion and hurrying to the end of the table, she stood in front of Kenpachi and his massive chipped war axe. “Zaraki, don’t you dare!”

“Nozarashi needs blood,” he shrugged, hefting the weapon on his shoulder. “And that bug fucker has been pissing me off for a hundred and fifty years. Justice this, order that. Fuck off. Pacifist piece of grasshopper shit.” He stepped forward until Rangiku was chest to stomach with him. “Move your pretty ass before I bruise it.” Rangiku started, her slit-pupil eyes widening.

“You think I’m pretty?” she said disbelievingly. Kenpachi grabbed her by the neck and threw her up over his shoulder, pinning her kicking legs with one arm. “Hey! I’ll scratch your ass off!” Ignoring her, his face like granite, Kenpachi glared down at them all.

“Well?”

“I will not have cold-blooded murder in my house,” Byakuya said from behind them. A gust of cold air blew through the hall. “Is he not incapacitated? Is he not utterly at our mercy? Kurosaki Ichigo, the conclave asked for proof. Give it to them.”

“Right,” Ichigo said, having no idea how to do that. “Unohana-san, is there any way to wake him up?”

“Try slapping him a little,” she said helpfully. “I’m hungry, and not inclined to purify him of my venom.”

“Great.” Kneeling down, Ichigo patted Tousen’s slack cheek. He’d gone kinda waxy looking. “Hey, Tousen. Can you hear me? You’ve been poisoned.”

“Poison,” Tousen croaked. His eyelids fluttered. “How…why?”

Ichigo tried to think. The expectant circle of bodies around him felt oppressive. “Aizen-sama thought your dedication to the cause had waned. He’s chosen a new second in command for—when the promised day arrives. Someone who can get the gems from the demon, not just talk about it.”

“Im…possible.” Tousen was twisting weakly inside his cocoon, head thrashing from side to side. A weird humming sound was coming from inside the restraining silk. “My loyalty is unquestionable. Eternal. We only need the human…”

Ichigo jerked in surprise, staring at Grimmjow’s blank face. The silk began to tear around Tousen’s body. His robes were shifting and expanding, like something was moving under them.

“He’s transforming,” Byakuya said flatly. “We’re running out of time.”

“I don’t like this,” Kyouraku murmured, scratching his stubbled chin. “Not at all.” Over Kenpachi’s shoulder, even Rangiku had gone limp. Ichigo felt a little like he was going to throw up. He slapped Tousen’s cheek again.

“Aizen-sama thinks Gin was right about you. You’re going to side with the tribe leaders. They’re your friends, aren’t they? There’s no way you could kill them.”

“Gin?” Rangiku said sharply, twisting under the enormous red hand holding her down. Tousen’s teeth sharpened up like the serrated edge of a knife.

“Better…to kill a few…to spare the many. Ichimaru is a snake—” The silk ripped open under Ichigo’s hands and he reared backwards, dragged clear by someone. Unohana’s face went from composed to wild, her blue eyes showing white the entire way around, another two arms shooting out of her sleeves.

Tousen sat up and exploded into ghostly purple flames. His entire body went up like a straw man in a bonfire, eating through cloth and skin in an instant. He didn’t even have time to scream. Everyone freaked out.

“Sweet scaly mercy!” Ukitake sounded like all the gems in the world weren’t going to keep him from fainting again.

“Put him out. He’s going to scorch the floorboards.” Byakuya had his priorities right.

“He’s really with Aizen…Aizen’s really evil? Gin is?” Rangiku was having a breakdown on Kenpachi’s shoulder. “My Gin?”

“Gods, it stinks!” That was Rukia, and followed by the sound of retching.

Kenpachi just started stamping out the fire when it came too close to his bare feet. Ichigo couldn’t tear his eyes away from the burning corpse on the floor. One of its eyes burst like an undercooked yolk. The room spun a little.

“So you’re all just going to stand here, huh.” A piece of heavy, rough-looking cloth was thrown over the flames. A bare foot started stomping it down without a care for the state of the body beneath it. Ichigo looked up into Abarai Renji’s angry, tribal-marked youkai face. “That was foxfire, in case anyone was wondering. Not a suicide.”

Rukia had been right; Renji did look like some kind of canine. His fang teeth were long and visible when he spoke, and his usual black tattoos were streaked down over his cheeks like thick dark lines. It made the weird amber-brown glow of his eyes seem brighter in the dim hall. But the red ears and tail didn’t hide the fact he was half-dressed in little more than rags, scarred all up and down his arms and chest. He looked at everyone like they were shit he wiped off his shoe. Not that he was wearing a shoe.

“Renji…” Ichigo whispered. “You look like you rolled out from under a car.”

“Fuck you, demon bait. How do you know my name?”

Demon bait? “None of your business, asshole!”

“You’ll talk or your face’ll be the next thing I stomp on.”

“Try it, Fido—” Wind blasted through the room like a hurricane, whipping the ceremonial hearth fire into a frenzy and sending everyone tumbling toward the back of the hall. Grimmjow ducked Ichigo’s head to his chest and hung on, his feet skidding over the floorboards. When he could push his face out from between muscled pecs Ichigo saw the Kuchiki siblings putting their fans away in peeved unison.

“Well, great,” Rukia said in high annoyance. “Now that we’ve all just committed murder together, why don’t we at least hide the body before we make any new ones! Tousen has an entire nest of cicada friends who know he came here, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, no,” said a melodious voice from the other end of the room. Ichimaru Gin walked in from the shadows of the door, smiling his terrible fox grin. “I torched the nest the moment he left. Loose threads can be such a bother. How are we all? Rangiku’s pert behind, long time no see. Kuchiki-san, your feathers are magnificent. Are you using that oil I sent you last solstice?” Gin strolled over like he owned the place, even chancing a fond pat on the head for Yachiru. She immediately tried to bite him. Unfazed, he kept going until he was standing right in front of Grimmjow. Or Ichigo, who was still embarrassingly ensconced in his muscular arms. “My, you two certainly learned to get along fast.” His eyes, ever appearing closed in a slitted smile, opened slightly to reveal startling aquamarine irises. “I guess I can still be surprised.”

“Gin?” Rangiku was sliding her way down Kenpachi’s body, landing without so much as a whisper of cloth. “What’s going on? You’ve always been secretive and weird, but this is really something else.” She didn’t try to approach, standing back with wary eyes. Her fingers touched the scar on her face. Ichigo wondered if Gin had given it to her. “Why did you kill Tousen like that?”

Gin barely spared her a glance. In fact, he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from Ichigo. Slowly, his smile faded completely away.

“Because Tousen Kaname is loyal to Aizen, of course, and I am not.” He tilted his head and frowned. “You’ve really botched up my plans, kid.” He turned to the others, taking them all in and executing a flourishing theatrical bow.

“Ichimaru Gin, kitsune tribe leader and consummate trickster, at your service. Shall we all sit back at the table and let him tell his tale? I find myself quite entranced by this creepy human and his pet demon.”

Ichigo brightened. Grimmjow glared.

Byakuya just stared at the ceiling. He looked like he was regretting ever getting out of bed that morning.

“At least remove the corpse first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spirit society part 2 is being released in a couple of days, which i assume was done specifically to destroy me 😑 so have an early chapter, bc nobody beats me to the punch. _nobody_
> 
> anyway rip tousen i guess lmao


	6. Chapter 6

They threw Tousen on the ceremonial fire like a crispy log.

It immediately filled the great hall with a stink like rancid barbecue, halting the immediate events while everyone sat out in the garden, letting the tengu servants fan out the smell and scrub the floor. Ichigo didn’t get much of a look at them in their matching grey uniforms, but they didn’t seem bothered by the tasks. He supposed it was better than Seaweed and Chappy making an encore presentation.

Ichigo was hanging around the giant sakura in the garden, trying to think of an opening line punchy enough to get their attention when Renji jumped down from its branches, showering him in white petals. His expression was belligerent through the crazy mane of his red hair. Ichigo noticed a small white scar through the corner of his lower lip. There wasn’t really a visible part of him that wasn’t scarred. Between those and all the black markings zagging across his body, he looked like a real wild-man.

“Why’d the bug bastard join Aizen?” Renji asked. Strange eyes flickered over Ichigo from head to toe. They didn’t seem interested in the gem at all. “And why does a human know any-fucking-thing about this place?”

“You’ve got some real attitude, Abarai Renji,” Kon barked from behind Ichigo’s shoulder, popping out of the hood again. “Is it because you don’t own a shirt?”

Renji stared. “What is that thing?”

“No, work with me here because I’m coming up with a theory: shirtlessness has a direct correlation with assholeish-ness in this place. Grimmjow, Kenpachi and now Renji.” Kon sat on Ichigo’s shoulder and crossed his paws smugly. “Assholes for days. Thoughts?”

“Shut up, Kon,” Ichigo muttered, grabbing him and tossing him across the pond. He landed in Byakuya’s capable hands with a small howl. Giving an apologetic shrug, Ichigo turned back to Renji. “I think he forgets he’s completely naked sometimes. I’m Kurosaki Ichigo. Good to meet you.” He held out his hand to shake but like everyone else Renji just ignored it, backing up against the trunk of the sakura. He crossed his arms in unimpressed judgement. Red fur the same colour as his hair completely covered his hands and arms all the way above his elbows. He looked like a cartoon werewolf—not that Ichigo was going to say so.

“You know my name, that thing knows my name, and the lot of them just fucking rolled over and killed a guy because you squeezed a few words out of him that sounded suspicious.” Renji’s chin jutted out, ears standing up high and pricked forward. “What makes you so sure?”

“I’ll be able to explain it soon,” Ichigo said, unreasonably disappointed by Renji’s unfriendly demeanour. Turning away, he searched for Grimmjow in the garden but couldn’t spot him anywhere. The others were all lounging on the engawa with the relocated snacks and tea, chattering away animatedly. It seemed like they were having a really nice reunion together. He wasn’t prepared for the hand that grabbed his hood and yanked him back so hard he staggered.

“Maybe you explain it now, or I give you a second mouth to talk shit with.” Claws sank into the side of his neck with a hot sting. “See if I get some answers that way.”

“Get away from him, mongrel!” Rukia yelled from across the pond, wings out and fan up. Gone was the pretty little feather shawl; her wings were elongated to the entire length of her body and spread wide to reveal a flare of red and black tail feathers spanning from her lower back. Her fan was on fire. “You weren’t invited here, and you are not welcome. Go back to your filthy kennel and re-learn some manners!”

“Whoa, hey,” Ichigo blurted, but the hand on his throat squeezed again. Ichigo saw Renji biting his lip hard enough to split open his scar. His face was savage, but his eyes weren’t. When he looked at Rukia, they weren’t.

“This whole fucking place can burn,” Renji snarled, throwing Ichigo to the ground. “Aizen can have you all.” Leaping back into the tree, snapping one of the branches under his heel, Renji sprang over the thick stone wall of the garden and bolted away. Breathing a little unsteadily, Ichigo touched his neck. His fingers came away smeared with red.

“Shit, Renji.” He jumped as feet landed beside him, still wearing house slippers. Rukia fluttered her wings strangely, making them shrink back down to just so many decorative feathers gracing her shoulders. She knelt beside him and clucked over his neck.

“I told you not to bother with him,” she said in annoyance, pulling a scrap of white silk from her sleeve and spitting into it. “Let me clean that off before Grimmjow comes back.”

“Can everyone stop putting their spit on me?” Ichigo complained, shoving her away. She fought her way around his arms, giving him her fan to hold. It spat little red sparks when he opened it. “Hey, cool.” It distracted him enough that she was able to wipe his neck clean, tutting over the whole exchange.

“If I’d known a simple meeting would end in murder I might have worn my third most fancy kimono,” she muttered. “Do you bring trouble with you wherever you go? Hold this.” The dirty handkerchief was shoved into his hands as she leaned in close to squint at his neck, shoving his head to the side. “Not a single scratch on you. That gem is really incredible.”

“Get off me, racist,” Ichigo said, shoving her on her ass. “Why are you such a dick to Renji?”

She gaped. “Because he was a dick first, Ichigo. His whole personality is one giant dick and balls that someone rolled through the dirt.” Her cheeks flamed. “I shouldn’t be talking like this, it’s not ladylike. And I’m not racist! Hitsugaya is wolf tribe and we get on fine, in a…distantly pleasant kind of way. Renji is probably the worst person I’ve ever met, and that includes your demon.”

“And Gin?” Ichigo asked skeptically.

“Second worst person, then.” She turned her nose up, grabbing her fan out of his hands. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Renji was one of Aizen’s spies too. Stop defending him to me!”

“I’m not!”

“Well, you’re not taking my side and I don’t like it!” Brushing herself off, Rukia leaned over him with hands on her hips. “This isn’t your world, Ichigo. Don’t expect everyone to magically love each other just because they’re friends where you’re from. You’re too naive if you think that’s even possible.” Spinning with a swirl of feathers and sparks, she hopped over the pond in a small whirlwind and joined the others again. On the engawa, Rangiku and Kyouraku were whispering and elbowing each other over sake. Gin just tinkled his fingers in the air and smiled from where he leaned on the wall.

“Fucking peanut gallery.” Ichigo got up and walked away, heading out into the main grounds where the gardens sprawled around the estate. When he found Grimmjow he was going to rip him a new one for ditching him so hard.

The garden was actually really nice. Given the chance to properly look around at it, Ichigo reluctantly decided that the tengu really did have a refined sense of aesthetics. Everything was a mixture of manicured lawn and natural growth. Small beds of tiny neat white flowers bloomed under drooping purple wisteria. Rock features and bamboo curled around perfectly even rolling lawn, stretching down to tiny bridges and bubbling fountains poised by more ponds decorated with lily-pads. The air smelled like sakura and night jasmine. Ichigo felt his shoulders unwind a little as he walked through it. He didn’t have a green thumb but it sure was pretty to look at. Weird that the flowers were all in full bloom even though the entire place was in lantern-lit twilight, but maybe that was just the spirit realm doing its impossible thing.

They’d really killed Tousen. Well, Gin had. And kind of Unohana. But Ichigo had attacked first, something he wasn’t used to being responsible for. He’d always been reactive, letting people state their intentions before he decided what to do. Dog Renji, or whatever he was, more than had a right to be suspicious of him. Even if he was kind of an asshole. Was the place changing him like it had changed all of the others? If youkai Aizen appeared in front of him in that exact instant and Ichigo had his sword and his powers, would he swing without mercy? Was that who he had the potential to become?

The doubt that hit him when he realised he couldn’t answer was nauseating. Maybe Grimmjow had done the right thing, breaking his badge like that. Maybe it was as much protection for the others as it was for Ichigo himself.

It wasn’t as though he’d never killed before. There’d been others in the past, but he’d never struck first, and never struck back without good reason. When he’d had a reasonable grasp of the concept of reason, anyway. The plan now was to strike preemptively before the war started. Which…meant striking first. The conflict that idea hauled up in him was confusing. But he couldn’t just wait for bodies to pile up first to appease his conscience.

Rounding the side of the main house, Ichigo approached another huge hanging wisteria, its purple blossoms drooping in long lacy tendrils. Beneath its veil was a low wooden bench. A demon sat on it, hunched over on his knees. Grimmjow was turning something over in his hands. He hardly reacted when Ichigo approached, but he moved over a little so he could sit too. A little nervous for reasons he couldn’t explain, he sat with a small gap between them. It was at the same time that he realised Grimmjow was holding the broken orange gem. Had it fallen out of his pocket?

“Found this near the campfire this morning,” Grimmjow said without looking up. “Coulda sworn I threw it in the spring with the others.” He didn’t fight when Ichigo took it from him, just lifted his head a little. “Did you go swimming for it after I left the mountain yesterday?”

“No, Hands gave it to me. It’s not like I was stealing,” Ichigo said hastily when Grimmjow frowned in surprise. “Besides, it’s mine anyway, isn’t it? And it’s broken, you said so yourself. So I’m keeping it and that’s final.”

“Calm down,” Grimmjow snorted. “I don’t care if you keep it. I just think it’s stupid that I left you alone in there and the only thing you took was the most useless gem in the clutch.”

“I didn’t take it!”

“Really expect me to believe that Hands went and fished that out? It’s not that smart, you know.”

“Hands is smarter than you think.” The spirit fingers from hell might try to grab him all the time, but there was more going on in there than just mindless obedience to whatever Grimmjow’s wishes were. “Speaking of, is it okay? I’ve got a little first aid pack in my bag back at the cave, I think it’ll have a burn ointment in it.” It probably wouldn’t cover the entire surface of the injuries, but he could at least apply it to the worst ones.

Finally turning to him, Grimmjow raised a cranky blue eyebrow. “You’re a real freak, you know that?”

Ichigo blinked. “Says the demon king with the ghost oni hands in the first place. Why the hell am I the freak?”

“Because you’re the only human I’ve ever met who took one look at Hands and decided it was going to be your friend.” Reaching over, Grimmjow plucked the gem from his fingers and transferred it to his blue-streaked black hand. As he clenched it in his fist, Ichigo watched as the blue on his arms flared almost blindingly bright for an instant. Magic like electricity crawled over his hand, flowing down from his shoulder in long, crackling threads. Ichigo could have sworn that for a moment it danced between the tips of his blue-tipped horns. Then it was all gone, and when Grimmjow opened his fingers the gem inside glowed warmly with a small, fluttering light. He tsked in disappointment and handed it back. “Best I can do with a gem that fucked up.”

“You recharged it?” The deep crack still ran through the gem, almost splitting it in two, but there was no mistaking the tiny glow inside it. “Thanks. Can I use it? What does it do?”

“Nothin’. Well,” Grimmjow said, hesitating, “it used to be a fire gem. A bad one. Stone was kinda dull, clarity was shitty. Didn’t hold the fire like I was hoping. Best you’ll get out of it is some fireworks if you throw it, probably.”

“You gave me a defective gem from the start?” Despite everything Ichigo was offended. “What if it really had been my ticket home back then and it hadn’t worked? I could have been stranded here!”

Grimmjow just shrugged. “Suits me. I like having you around, even if you do prefer those assholes.”

“Who says I do?” Hard for Ichigo to get mad when he was glowing inside like his little gem.

“I do. I watched you from the door, trying to coax the kid down. Touching that tree bastard and the tengu lord like that? You walked through them like you fit right in. Like they’re your _people_.” Shifting to his right a little to better face him, Grimmjow tilted his head and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “You weren’t kidding when you said you knew them in your world. You handled yourself pretty good in there.”

“Thanks,” Ichigo replied, nonplussed. “But knowing them in my world doesn’t mean I prefer them. It just means I know how to talk to them.” Budging over on the bench, Ichigo closed their small gap until they sat thigh to thigh. “Didn’t I say you were my favourite? Don’t be so needy.”

“Needy?” The hand that shoved him into the grass was effortlessly strong. So were the knees that pinned on either side of his as Grimmjow followed him down. “Who says I need to be your favourite, tengu-lover?”

“I do, human-lover.” Grabbing the remaining leather strands of his necklaces, Ichigo tugged Grimmjow down until he could headbutt his horns lightly. “You like me a lot. But I like you more, so get used to being stuck with me.”

“Already am.” Bare arms adorned with blue streaks and metal cuffs slid under his back and hauled him upright again. With barely a grunt of strain Grimmjow stood with Ichigo as his new burden, whose legs were clenched to his waist in some kind of reverse piggyback. “Think they’ll shit their pants if I walk back in with you like this?”

“Forget them, I’m gonna shit my pants. They already think I’m some weakling human.“

“That again?” Grimmjow growled, letting him slide down to his feet. “If you don’t need me as muscle, what the fuck do you even want me here for? Could just go back home. You’ve already proved you can handle them.”

“Kenpachi licked my face and called me Cutlet. Trust me, you’re needed.” A thunderously unhappy look crossed Grimmjow’s face.

“Stay away from that one, human. No red oni ever brought good with it. Not even some halfbreed behemoth like Zaraki Kenpachi.”

“What?” Ichigo blurted. “He’s an oni like you? But you said—”

“He’s anathema.” There was a strange finality to the words. “Red oni aren’t—weren’t—on good terms with the other tribes. They call me savage in there? I don’t have shit on those in-bred cannibal fuckers. From the look of those black horns, Zaraki’s mother fucked outside the tribe. When she whelped they'd have tossed him off a cliff or something, probably. Explains why he’s no-tribe.” Grimmjow’s mouth tucked down. “And alive, when every other demon clan isn’t.”

“Jeez.” That was a whole lot to take in at once. It was probably dumb of him to think demons weren’t a harsh race when it came to bloodlines and clans. Just because they were all dead didn’t mean they’d been saints. Throwing a baby away just because it wasn’t like them? That was disgusting. A sudden thought struck him. “Do you think Kenpachi knows? What he is, I mean. Rukia made it sound like he mightn’t. You could tell him—“

“Fuck that.”

“But what if he can make gems like you can? That could make him a target for Aizen.”

“He can’t, stupid. He’s mixed blood. Half demon and half something else.” Grimmjow’s expression was dark. “That oni doesn’t need shit from me. He’s got a new tribe now.”

“And you don’t,” Ichigo said, realising a few things at once. “I can understand why that would sting. Sorry I brought it up.”

“Stop thinking about my feelings all the time. It’s gross.” Despite that statement, Grimmjow did walk a little closer than usual as they made their way back to the engawa, where the others were still snacking and talking. Ichigo fought a sudden urge to take his hand, instead distracting himself with pocketing his newly refreshed gem in his coat. The other youkai didn’t need to know he had that.

“Shall we recommence?” Byakuya said as they approached, looking unruffled and lordly in his embroidered blue and white kimono. It didn’t look the same as yesterday’s one, but Ichigo sensed there was some kind of meaning behind the colours. It made him wonder why Rukia always seemed to wear red. The enormous wings on his back shivered slightly the same way Rukia’s had, but they didn’t shrink down. He left them loose like a demonstration of strength. Steely eyes scanned them both with unrelenting calculation. “The great hall has been cleaned and aired. Kurosaki Ichigo, I think it’s time you told the rest of the tribe leaders precisely why you believed Tousen Kaname to be our enemy. Do be sincere in your explanation; some of my guests believe it was something of a senseless attack.”

“So no pressure,” Ichigo replied tiredly. “Fine, let’s go in.” He stepped up onto the engawa, feeling Grimmjow’s steadying hand on his back for an instant. While he was pulling off his borrowed footwear, Byakuya looked over him to Grimmjow’s scowling face. Naturally, it was taken immediately as some kind of judgement.

“What?” Grimmjow snarled.

“How did you come by those feathers of mine?” Byakuya asked coolly. “And they are indeed mine, however split and dishevelled they appear now.” Reflexively, Grimmjow touched his long earrings. He jerked his hand away almost as fast.

“You’re not getting ‘em back.” The words were rigidly spoken, but not as tense as Grimmjow’s entire body seemed to turn, like he was preparing for something. Behind Byakuya, the other youkai had gone quiet with interest, watching over what looked like porcelain dishes of the Kuchiki sake stash.

“I did not ask for them back. I asked how they came into your possession.” Byakuya’s mouth gave a small, wry twitch. “I daresay I would have noticed had you plucked them from my wings.”

“You sure?” Grimmjow retorted. “Every demon knows if you want to distract a tengu, just show them their own reflection.”

“Hey!” Rukia said, her cheeks flushing angrily. Or maybe it was the sake’s doing; her eyes did look a little over-bright. “We can’t help it we’re beautiful!”

“There’s beautiful and then there’s beautiful,” rumbled Kenpachi from the edge of the deck. His horrible amber-yellow eyes were amused. “Who cares if he stole your fucking feathers, Kuchiki. Did you leave your virtue in one of ‘em? No?” He settled back against the wall. “Maybe your balls, then.”

Byakuya’s nostrils flared. Completely distracted from his questioning, he started to turn in Kenpachi’s direction, while Rangiku tittered a laugh into her fuchsia sleeve. The flick and swivel of her ears gave her completely away, just like the ink-black bloom of her pupils. Beside her, Unohana was sipping her tea, again wearing her pretty lady facade—except for the threatening red bloom of her lips. They all looked like they were on the brink of feasting on another fight. Or each other. God damn it.

“The wind blew them into his hands,” Ichigo said, and the tension snapped like a brittle twig. Grimmjow’s head jerked around. So did Byakuya’s. All Ichigo could do was shrug. “Or maybe into a nearby tree. Who cares? But he didn’t steal them. Look, can we all go inside and get on with the reason we all came here? We can insult each other later.”

“Do you promise?” Grimmjow hissed, bending and shoving his mouth almost entirely against Ichigo’s ear. “Don’t go fighting my battles.”

“Not everything is a battle!” Ichigo whispered right back, flicking his jawbone mask for good measure. “Stop trying to make everyone hate you. Some of these people could be your friends if you’d let them.”

“I don’t want friends.”

“Not even me?” That earned him a filthy look, but Grimmjow didn’t respond. Pleased, Ichigo allowed himself to be pushed and prodded back into the great hall.

“Ichi! I’m sitting with you!” Yachiru announced happily as they all resumed their original seats. Before Ichigo could think of a way to refuse her she was ass-down in the cradle of his lap, beaming out at everyone and chewing on the end of one cotton-candy pink piece of hair. He pulled it out before she could choke on it, darting Grimmjow a helpless look. She wasn’t that heavy and he could see over the top of her head, but she was going to ruin his serious storytelling vibe. Grimmjow pretended not to see his look, crossing his arms and staring down the table to Byakuya’s stony face. Great.

“You may proceed, Kurosaki Ichigo,” Byakuya said gravely, once the others had settled. “Tell the same tale you told me. Afterwards, we will weigh it against the recent events that have taken place.”

“I can hardly wait,” Gin said, sitting between Rangiku and Toshirou. The smile he buried in one propped hand was wide. Ichigo took a deep breath.

Showtime.

“The story started hundreds of years ago in my world, when a shinigami lieutenant named Aizen Sousuke decided he could obtain the power to change the Soul Society and remake it in his image. For me, the story started when I was fifteen years old, and a shinigami named Kuchiki Rukia stepped through my bedroom wall and changed my life.” Across the table, Rukia ducked her head and gave a small, pleased smile. “I’ll try to keep it down to the points that matter.”

So he spoke. He mostly skipped his own origins and training, trying to strip everything down to only the parts that mattered. Aizen’s wonderful reputation as a captain. His love of calligraphy and tea, his quiet demeanour and gentle strength. All those things Hinamori Momo had spoken so dreamily about, the things Rangiku and Ukitake had remarked on with regretful sighs after the war had been over. A long, slow-built veneer so convincing that nobody had thought to question his strangely friendless existence, or why he’d been so insistent on demonstrating his shikai to every captain and lieutenant in the Gotei 13 at once. Not until it became terribly, painfully clear: Aizen had been every bit a cold and ruthless schemer, hell-bent on achieving his ends by any means necessary.

Ichigo told them about Rukia’s gigai, the faux body that had been holding the hougyoku as a vault to keep it out of the wrong hands until it could be rendered inert. Her capture, imprisonment and execution order without a fair trial. Central 46’s slaughter, and the fake judgements that had emerged from it to keep the plan on track. Gin and Tousen’s part in the deception: one to play a calm voice of justice and reason, the other to redirect suspicion onto themselves. Then, the eventual successful taking of the hougyoku, and the preparation for the winter war.

The creation of the arrancar and their parallel with the demon race in Spirit Society elicited murmurs and exchanged glances. Grimmjow stared through them all as Ichigo rattled off their names and eventual deaths. Some he’d been there for, many others he hadn’t. In a small act of personal mercy, he left out the part where Grimmjow’s fraccion had been slaughtered in one night by the deployed shinigami in the area.

On and on he talked, until his voice ran thready and Unohana pushed him a fresh cup of tea, silently listening to everything he said without judgement. In his lap Yachiru had fallen asleep, her head a heavy lolling weight he propped up with his arm. He winced as the feeling began to fade in the limb but he didn’t stop telling that one, long tale all the way to Aizen’s eventual defeat.

When he was finished, the table stared back at him in mute wonder and dismay.

“Your world’s Gin is dead?” Rangiku said finally, her voice thick. “He worked so hard all alone…and he died for nothing?”

“Ah, not for nothing,” Gin said thoughtfully, his eyes creasing closed on a new smile. “Rangiku survived!”

“Shut up, you moron,” Rangiku snapped—and covered her face with her sleeves. Ichigo didn’t stare at the way her shoulders trembled. Hell, nobody did. Gin only patted her shoulder twice and went back to peeling an apple with a long thumbnail claw, the peel unfurling in one long spiral as he worked. He looked completely unbothered by his doppelgänger’s death.

“I admit this information is extremely troubling,” Ukitake said gravely. “However, apart from the word of an outsider, a reclusive oni and a known trickster-liar, I see no real proof that these events are going to unfold in a similar fashion here.”

“Sure there is,” Grimmjow said tightly. “There’s a powerful jewel in each world, and Aizen’s doing everything in his power to get his filthy scaled hands on this one.” There was a terrible tension in his words that said he was barely holding onto his control. Ichigo knew the whole thing was a hell of a lot to listen to. To know that even in his world, most of the arrancar were also dead. All of it, for a gleaming jewel that could change three worlds—or destroy them.

“The dragon’s gem?” Kyouraku said, scratching his stubbled cheek a little. “If the ryuujin can produce one, what more does he need from us? Their magic is ancient and slow to bear fruit. I don’t think there’s much to fear there.”

“Unless there was an alternate method of fuelling such a gem,” Toshirou said slowly, surprising everyone. He’d been so quiet and attentive during the day that Ichigo had been overlooking him. Just then, some of the old soul maturity he’d come to associate with the white-haired kid shone through, forthright and intelligent. “Unohana-san, you’re one of the oldest and wisest among us. What are the chances of such a thing existing?”

Ichigo was about to open his own mouth when Unohana lifted her eyes and stared straight past him to Grimmjow. For the first time there were no veils of soft kindness, only a hard, clear sort of gaze that Ichigo couldn’t decipher. Slowly, everyone followed her attention, until all eyes were on Grimmjow’s gritted teeth and the bead of blood gathering on his lower lip. Reaching across, Ichigo laid his hand on the stone-like muscle of his gem-forging arm. Grimmjow blinked a few times and pulled in a short, sharp breath.

“Dragons and demons share a common ancestor,” he said, the words sounding like they were being dragged out of him one by one. “Maybe our gods were sculpted by the same hand. The stories contradict each other everywhere. Nobody could ever agree on who had it right or if it was even true. Til one day, Aizen Sousuke gathered every demon clan under the mountain and told us all that if we could produce enough gems to fuel his heavenly jewel, he’d have enough power to make the demons a true unified tribe with the dragons. That we’d be the biggest in the Spirit Society. Unstoppable, maybe. All we had to do was hand every fully-powered gem in our arsenal over to the ryuujin.”

Silence filled the hall, ringing with shock. Even Kenpachi couldn’t find humour in the revelation.

Rukia gaped. “So it’s already over? Aizen has his weapon? You could have led with that!” When Byakuya shot her a quelling look she actually hopped to her feet, walking down to kneel between Toshirou and Grimmjow at the corner of the table. “What’s missing here? What happened?”

Grimmjow didn’t reply. If anything he seemed to be hunching down, like the gazes drilling into him held a physical weight that was crushing him.

“The demons refused Aizen’s offer,” Gin said suddenly, his apple sliced perfectly in a frilly array on his plate by then. He gave Rangiku the plate and started eating the peel instead. “He didn’t take it very well.” Beside Ichigo, Unohana’s eyes briefly closed and she nodded to herself, as though something had been confirmed.

“I used to trade silks with the demons in exchange for fine metals and peace between our tribes. I began to call a young demoness named Tier Harribel something of a friend, after many years of such trading.” Her mouth flattened. “It’s been one hundred years since I saw her, or any demon who wasn’t this young oni. I had my suspicions, but the grief in his eyes always struck me as the answer to a question I could not bring myself to ask.”

“Then…they’re dead?” Rukia asked, her voice small. Grimmjow nodded without looking at her. She sat back in speechless denial. “But demons numbered in the hundreds! Maybe even more! How could one youkai, even a ryuujin of uncommon strength, manage to commit a near-total genocide?”

“I don’t know,” Grimmjow grated. “I wasn’t there. When I got back to the mountain, the arena was running with blood. All of them dead, or dying. Now it’s just me. I don’t know if Aizen managed to take their gems from them or they destroyed them all themselves, but I couldn’t find a single one in all the bodies.” Finally lifting his gaze, he glared across the table at Ichimaru Gin. “Tell me what the hell really happened that day.”

Shifting Yachiru a little as she started to snore softly, Ichigo looked around the table at everyone, trying to gauge whether they believed what was being said. Dismay seemed to be the most popular reaction. Kenpachi was frowning a little. Unohana had resumed serenely drinking her tea. Only Gin was still smiling.

“It’s simple, really: the rules were to leave all gems outside in a demonstration of goodwill. The demons had no issue with that, for they believed themselves more powerful than one arrogant dragon, even if he was the ryuujin.” Crunching on a torn off piece of peel, Gin dabbed his mouth with a small cloth from his sleeve. His smile was gone when the cloth slid away. “They didn’t count on Aizen’s jewel having inherent power of its own. When they laughed in his face, he used it. End of story.”

“What does it do?” Ichigo asked urgently, his chest tightening with dread. “How does it work?”

Gin’s eyes opened fully then, and there was no insensitive joviality in his expression, nor anything else to suggest he was still taking pleasure in the conversation. Just a long, cold look that said he’d witnessed something even Ichimaru Gin couldn’t find it in himself to joke about.

“I asked Aizen about his jewel once, before I knew what he was. He told me its gift was to bring forth waking dreams of purest delight. Or terror. Visions so rich they touched every sense with a kind of power that made them feel real.” He turned and looked at Rangiku then, lifting his fingertips to her scarred cheek. “He used it on me that day.”

“Oh, Gin,” Rangiku said softly, covering his hand with her own. “We were little more than children! Don’t blame yourself. What could you have done?”

“Then? Nothing.” Some of the smile came back into his voice. “I did think I would be doing this alone, but as fate would have it, even Aizen Sousuke makes mistakes. I’m starting to believe his greatest one was overlooking what one little blue oni could become when the right human crosses his path.” Eyes turned back to Ichigo, who felt his ears heat up uncomfortably. He still had a question.

“The jewel makes you see anything he wants you to see. It’s the same way his zanpakutou worked.” Ichigo felt Grimmjow’s gaze hit him like a wall. “He didn’t actually lift a finger to kill the demons himself, did he? He just made the demons all see their friend as their foe, and they killed each other.”

“And then he took the stored gems safely locked outside the conclave arena,” Gin finished. “Nice and neat, exactly the way Aizen likes to do things. Hundreds slaughtered, and there wasn’t a drop of blood staining his hands.”

Blue light erupted above Grimmjow as Hands flew back into existence, looking whole and unmarked from claws to flaming wrists. There wasn’t so much as a blister in sight as it circled above Grimmjow’s head in slow, vulture-like gliding arcs. For Grimmjow’s own part, he was finally unwinding from his statue-like state of tension, pushing himself off the zabuton and getting to his feet. Blazing blue eyes stared down the table at each and every youkai there.

“My human is here to convince you all that Aizen’s a real threat to the Spirit Society. The demons are dead, and Aizen has their gems. But he needs more, or he wouldn’t be fucking around in the shadows trying to trick me into handing over mine.” Gin’s slow nod punctuated the words, backing him up. Grimmjow bared his teeth, which had sharpened up like razors. “Maybe you think his fight is with the demons and you’re safe. I don’t give a fuck. I’m gonna kill the son of a bitch, and I’ve got five hundred fully-powered gems and my ancestor’s hands to do it with. Join me or don’t—it’s Ichigo that thinks the lot of you deserve a chance to prepare yourself for what’s coming. This is that chance.”

It was a rousing kind of speech, delivered in a way that only Grimmjow could pull off. Blunt, angry and bitter—and still an invitation to start a war before they could become the victims of one. After losing everything, Grimmjow wanted to throw himself against the secretive monolith of Aizen’s vast plots and take it apart piece by piece. Because Ichigo told him it could be done. That there was hope it could work.

No pressure, Ichigo thought again, a little dizzy as the others all looked at each other with queasy expressions of uncertainty. So far it had been nothing but words. Words were great, but they weren’t the same as concrete proof. Looking up at Hands, Ichigo waved it down until he could speak softly against one clawed fingertip. Both star-like blue hands vanished in an instant.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, when you all woke up feeling safe and peaceful in your beds this morning.” Slowly, Ichigo got to his feet as well, leaving Yachiru curled on his cushion. “All this? It’s pretty unbelievable. I haven’t been here very long but even I can tell this place has been used to a tranquil sort of peace for a really long time. Nothing’s changed here for centuries. For some of you.” Byakuya held his gaze with a chilly defiance that said he was not one of those people. Next to him, Ukitake and Kyouraku were looking bothered. “Well, for Grimmjow it’s changed a lot—but maybe you’re thinking that’s got nothing to do with you. If Aizen gets to wage his war on his own terms, even if you win it, there’s a roll-on effect that leaves everyone high and dry when the next threat arrives. You won’t make up your numbers in time. You’ll be caught by surprise. Some of you will do some really stupid shit. And some of you will probably die.”

“That’s pure speculation,” Toshirou said, scratching his ear with a grey-furred paw. “Our worlds can’t align that closely.”

“Yeah?” Ichigo challenged. “Where’s Hinamori-san right now? What does she think of Aizen?” The wide-eyed look of unease said all he needed to know. “He rewards her loyalty by stabbing her through the chest in my world. Later, he uses his illusions on you, and you almost finish the job for him.” Turning, he pointed at Gin. “And you? You thought you had him. But he knew you were a spy from the beginning. He probably knows it right now. He’s planned for it—he’s probably planned for all of it. The only thing he can’t possibly predict is me and Grimmjow. So good luck surviving without us.”

A second blaze of blue fire lit the great hall then, and in the stunned silence of Ichigo’s words, Hands flew in and threw its treasures down on the long table, clacking and clattering amongst the fruit and flowers.

“Oh, gods,” Rangiku whispered as the first bones landed on the table around her, ivory and appalling for just how many there were. Ribs and thighs and spines and skulls, each one dented and cracked or cleanly broken. A graveyard of demons for their selfish banquet. Awakened by the noise, Yachiru sat up at the table and grabbed a jawbone in curiosity, staring at its yellowed teeth.

“Hey, these look just like mine!” she laughed, baring her tiny tusks and holding it up to match. “Can I keep it?”

“_No_,” Byakuya and Kenpachi snapped at the same time, looking strained. Beside Ichigo, Grimmjow was swallowing in that way that said he was close to his limit.

“You don’t pull your punches,” Grimmjow said hoarsely, staring out at the bones. “Maybe you’re onto something with Hands.”

“Told you,” Ichigo said, feeling about as far from a victor as possible. “Hey, when this is done, let’s bury them all. One good earth gem could do it, right?”

“You an expert now?”

“No, I just know how strong you are.” The only response he received was Grimmjow’s hand on his back through his coat, drawing a long line of gratitude down his spine. It felt a lot nicer than the circumstances would let him enjoy.

At the table, Rukia was shaking a little as she ran her hands over the bones, her pretty hairpins swinging as she leaned forward. “Some of these are so small, I…how could he do it? What kind of cold-hearted monster could take this many lives for a stupid jewel?”

“For power,” Byakuya corrected softly, staring down the table with a shadowed gaze. “I have an idea about that jewel, Ichimaru-san. In its original form it can bring on strong illusions, yes?” Gin only nodded. “Then if fully powered, could it be possible that this jewel could warp reality itself in the image of its wielder’s desire?”

“It’s almost a certainty,” Gin said, also not pulling any punches. “It’s over halfway to completion now with the help of those stolen gems, and growing stronger by the day. On its own, it will be another three hundred years before it attains full power, by my count. But today? He can turn flowers into snakes and water into blood. If we leave him alone, he will one day rule us all. It’s inevitable.”

It was daunting to hear, even to Ichigo. The hougyoku had only powered Aizen to insane levels of strength, given him the ability to regenerate with the speed of a true immortal. But actively warping reality according to his whims? That was…impossible. Godlike. And maybe that was exactly why this version of Aizen thought it was his due to rule the entire Spirit Society come hell or high water.

“So what do we do?” Ukitake asked, looking concerned. “We go to war? Summon our seconds, pull our tribes in from all corners of the Society and storm his estate with numbers? It sounds preposterous. There hasn’t been a war in the Spirit Society since the ancient times. How do we even know where to begin?”

“We vote,” said Byakuya. Brushing his ornate feathered braids behind his shoulder, he followed Ichigo and Grimmjow to also stand. One by one, the youkai leaders followed, looking like they were caught somewhere between nauseated and grim. “Those in favour of taking action will convene here to begin strategising. Those who wish to do nothing are advised to return to their lands and set their wards.” His eyes narrowed as he scanned each of them, lingering a little longer on Kenpachi’s stone-like face. “Whatever you decide, all of you will give your oath of secrecy: an oath broken only upon pain of death.”

Ichigo felt about as wound up as any of them. It was really happening. Looking at Grimmjow, he was surprised to see a lack of the usual sneering disdain he’d been levelling at them all afternoon. Instead he just looked blank as he watched the youkai all exchange wary glances with each other. Following his look, Ichigo wondered what he was seeing. Strength. Youkai nobles who believed him, who felt for him. And maybe some who would do nothing but watch it play out.

“We can’t just stand by,” Rukia said slowly, her fingers linking in front of her. The look she turned to Byakuya was hesitant, but determination was gathering in her shoulders, pulling her spine straight. “_I_ can’t just stand by. It’s not right. Whether its demon or tengu, Aizen has committed an atrocity that’s impossible to overlook.”

“Oh?” Byakuya questioned. “I was unaware that you had my permission to act independently of my will.” The words were calm and unaffected, but Rukia’s cheeks flushed a blotchy pink. Across the table, Kenpachi made a rude noise. She darted him a quick, startled look—and then turned to look up at Grimmjow with an expression of pure, irritated stubbornness. When she turned back to Byakuya, there was steel in her voice.

“Nii-sama, you’ve always said honour and pride rest in repaying one’s debts, no matter how large or small. This demon saved my life three years ago, when Ichimaru Gin was still carrying out Aizen’s orders to trick Grimmjow’s gems out of his hands.” All eyes swung to Gin, whose smile had frozen on his face. Rukia pointed with a tiny pale hand, fire blazing off the tip of a red-nailed finger. “The kitsune lord used his magic to assume my form and take Ichigo’s gem from him, and imprisoned me in the dungeons beneath his shrine. He manipulated us in cold blood. The only reason I’m free today is because Grimmjow listened to Ichigo and left his territory to get back what had been taken from him, before I could be taken to some farce of a trial.” Snuffing out the flames gathering on her fingertips, Rukia let her hand drop. Byakuya was staring at her like he’d never seen her before. “I owe this demon my life, nii-sama. If he fights, I will fight with him.” She blinked. “And Ichigo.”

“And Kon,” said Kon, hopping up onto the table to stand at Byakuya’s side. “‘Cause I’m not letting anything happen to you, nee-san!” He crossed his arms in defiance when Byakuya stared down at him with an arched eyebrow. “Don’t underestimate me!”

“Well, I feel inspired,” Kyouraku confided to Ukitake, who shook his head faintly. “You don’t?”

“A land-based battle?” Ukitake said mournfully. “My people will wither and perish in the first wave. I can’t order them to lay down their lives like that, when even I can’t survive for long unaided.” He touched the blue stone hanging over his heart. “Much as I would like to help, I’m hobbled by my very nature.”

“And I would caution you not to join them,” Gin told Rangiku, who was staring at him in confusion. “The neko tribe isn’t strong enough for battle against something like Aizen.”

“Who’s going to listen to you now?” Rangiku cried, teeth gritted. Little white fang teeth, as delicate as a house cat’s, were descending from her upper jaw. “For a moment I thought you were on our side, but what you did to Rukia-chan? She’s a young tengu woman, no different than me!”

“Well, she’s a little younger,” Gin said mildly. “No insult intended.”

“My point stands, you ass! Who knows which side you’re really on?”

“That’s easy.” Reaching down among the bones, Gin pulled out a decorative blossom the same pale blue as Rangiku’s eyes. “I’m on yours.” He held it out like an offering, but she slapped it away angrily. It fluttered to the wooden floor with a crushed stem. “Oh, dear.”

“It’ll take a lot more than that to convince me.” Crossing her arms under her bosom, she jutted her chin and turned to Ichigo. “Neko tribe will fight with the human and his demon when the appointed time arrives.”

“How spiteful!” Gin exclaimed, a hand on his heart. “I suppose kitsune tribe have no choice but to follow suit.”

Kenpachi scratched the base of one pitted black horn. “Now I’m no fancy noble, but how the hell does some nobody neko with only one tail speak for the entire tribe? Where the fuck’s your queen?”

Rangiku scowled across the table. “Where have you been? She disappeared centuries ago. Around the same time that tanuki was executed for treason. Supposedly, anyway. I’ve been acting in her stead ever since. Not that I expect some no-tribe to understand how hierarchy in a real tribe works.” She turned up her nose. “How do you promote within your clan? Rock paper scissors? Some kind of eating contest?”

“Battle to the death, princess.” Kenpachi’s smile was all pointed teeth. “Speaking of, I could use one. No-tribe fights at my leisure. We’re in.” Beside him, Unohana clasped her hands in front and bowed her head.

“My nest has always been impartial. Spiders have no allegiance, not even to their own.” Her eyes opened and found Grimmjow, who was preparing to cuss her out. Her smile was faint, but it was there. “Gumo tribe will not stand with you. But I shall.” Closing his mouth reluctantly, Grimmjow settled a little. Then, looking over at the fireplace with its ancient wings and across to the bones on the table, he gave a single, jerky nod.

“Thanks.”

“So that leaves Byakuya, Kyouraku-san and Toshirou,” Ichigo counted. He ignored the filthy looks Byakuya and Toshirou gave him for his informality. Kyouraku’s hair just blossomed a little. “Ukitake-san, humour me here but hypothetically, if you could fight, would you? What are your tribe’s numbers?”

Ukitake was looking deeply unhappy with himself. Ichigo felt a little bad for singling him out, but at least he could make it clear to everyone that he wasn’t turning them down out of cowardice. Fish people on land were as good as dead. Hell, Rangiku might even eat them before they got anywhere near Aizen.

Tugging his white braid over his shoulder, Ukitake sighed. His finned ears bobbed as he swallowed. “Yes, of course I would. Frankly I can see no other option but to fight. This jewel sounds malevolent in its powers at the very least.” He spread his hands, their fragile pink webbing catching the light. “But my tribe numbers no more than fifty, and to leave the rivers they were born in is suicide. You’ve already seen how well I fare.”

“Hard to argue with that,” Grimmjow said, grunting a little and kicking his leg out. Behind him, Yachiru was trying to climb his pants. She already had a clawed hand hooked in his protective metal plating. “Kid, fuck off.”

“You fuck off,” Yachiru parroted back, grabbing the back of his hole for leverage. With her tiny bat wings straining, she launched up to his shoulders and grabbed on. “Got you!” She squirmed up until she was sitting on them. Grimmjow cursed and started reaching into his pocket, but Ichigo grabbed his arm, slipping his hand into his black one and holding on. Just how many gems was he storing in there?

“Aw, two weird gays and their horrifying spawn,” Kon said indulgently at the sight. “I’m tearing up!” He only leered harder when Ichigo mimed decapitation before Grimmjow could turn and see it. “Anyway, clearly the ayes have this one, so can we break for snacks and sake? Byakuya, you’re not going to be shown up by a selfish cat and an ogre, are you? For shame.”

“I will not be goaded into this,” Byakuya said stiffly. “Your machinations are too transparent.”

“But Byakuya,” Kon said, aggrieved. “Even the _women_ are fighting.”

“Your point?”

“Yes,” Rukia said threateningly. “What exactly is your point, Kon?” Knowing when his life was in danger, Kon disappeared under the table in record time, most likely to avoid the fireball Rukia was thinking of shoving up his ass. “Come out!”

“Hell no!” Was the muffled reply. Watching the small spectacle, Toshirou frowned pensively.

“I’m going to need more time to make an informed decision.” He shook his head gravely, turning to Ichigo. “Human—“

“Ichigo.”

“…Ichigo, I think you might have been right about Hinamori, and that worries me. I need to ensure she’s out of his grasp. Until then, I can’t commit the ookami to this. He’ll have us by the scruff of our necks otherwise.”

“That’s fair,” Ichigo said limply. Toshirou had always been one of the most fired up when it came to battling Aizen, but the stakes were different there. Aizen was practically holding Hinamori hostage, only nobody knew it yet. “What exactly does she do for him?”

Toshirou’s ears twitched and flattened. “They drink tea together a lot, talk about flower arrangements, work on their meditation. She adores him. It’s…kind of gross, but she likes to visit there as often as she can. She enjoys the river walk along his borders.”

“River?” Ukitake said, brightening suddenly. “How close does she walk?”

Toshirou frowned curiously. “She comes back with mud on her shoes sometimes.”

“Ho-ho!” Kyouraku said, clapping his hands together decisively. “Ukitake-san, you and I can kidnap her in no time! A log barring her path, a swirl of petals to blind her, and a handsome ningyo to carry her away on a river wave. Perfect!”

“Rivers don’t really have waves,” Ukitake said mildly, but he was sparkling a little as silvery scales glittered on his cheeks. They looked like the equivalent of a fishy blush. “I haven’t carried a pretty maiden away in some time. Count me in.”

“Ukitake-san, you sea dog! My branches are positively trembling with excitement.” Kyouraku smiled at Byakuya, who was looking put-upon and tired. “Perhaps our services are best used in line with the terrain at hand. Hitsugaya-san, if Hinamori-san is secured, would you commit your tribe to this?”

“I…yeah.” His green eyes sharpened. “Yes. But there’s one more matter that concerns me, and that’s the human.”

“It’s Ichigo. Kurosaki Ichigo. And what about me?”

“Tousen’s last words were that they needed you. How can you be flying so low under Aizen’s radar and yet still be something he needs? I don’t think you’re as overlooked as you’d like to believe you are.”

“He actually hates it,” Grimmjow said with ill grace, trying to drop his shoulder so that Yachiru would fall off. Unfortunately, she had a death grip on his horns. “The fox would know for sure, but I’m gonna say Aizen wants him because he’s the only thing that can get inside the mountain’s wards and destroy them.”

“Ten points!” Gin clapped lightly. “Of course, soon enough Aizen will be able to take it down himself, or turn it into some inoffensive matter and walk inside. I hope you hid those gems well. Five hundred, you said?” His smile flattened a little. “Did he miss a secret cache of them that day?”

“No. He didn’t.” Reaching above his head, Grimmjow finally got hold of Yachiru and pulled her off his shoulders. Unfortunately, she came holding one of his golden horn rings. “Hands! Clean up. We’re done here.” On cue, Hands began scooping up each and every bone it had brought from the mountain—and a few flower arrangements. Byakuya watched it flash out of existence with an offended scowl.

“Wait, we’re leaving already?” Ichigo blurted, confused. They hadn’t even begun to plan anything. “But Byakuya hasn’t even said—”

“I don’t give a shit. All this talk about my gems is pissing me off.” He held out his hand to Yachiru. “Give the ring back.”

“No.”

“Do it!”

“But it’s pretty!”

“Yachiru-chan,” Unohana said gently. “It won’t fit you. Give it back.”

“I might grow into it,” Yachiru argued, but her tone didn’t share her conviction. Grimmjow watched her with annoyed impatience for a moment as her fingers worked absently over the soft gold. She had it clutched to her chest like a secret treasure. “There’s no metal in no-tribe except for Nozarashi! Why can’t I have some of your metal?”

“Because I didn’t make it for you, dipshit!” Grimmjow snapped. “There’s no metal in the other tribes because no fucking noble ever had the balls to trade with the demons for it.” Unohana coughed lightly. Grimmjow stiffened. “Except the spider.”

Yachiru looked devastated by the news. Staring from Unohana to Kenpachi, who thankfully in no way looked inclined to intervene, she finally looked down at the large ring in her small hands. It was pretty damn big—thick enough to fit the base of one of Grimmjow’s horns, decorated with tiny rubies and intricate whorls in the gold. Miserably she handed it out, head lowered and mouth trembling. Ichigo felt his protective older brother heart squeeze a little.

Grimmjow snatched it back without remorse and jammed it back on his horn. Yachiru burst into tears.

“I hope your dick falls off!” she sobbed, running all the way up the other end of the table where, of all the people to turn to, she buried her face in Byakuya’s thigh. Appalled, he stared at her little pink head like she was a hideous spectre come to steal his soul. Maybe some people just didn’t like kids that much. Grimmjow could obviously relate. Kenpachi only rolled his eyes heavenward and nudged Unohana, who shrugged. Ichigo wondered how long they’d known each other to be able to have a silent conversation like that.

“The demon is free to leave,” Byakuya said rigidly, as though Yachiru wasn’t even there. “However, Kurosaki Ichigo, I bid you to remain in my halls. If Aizen seeks you for your connection to the demon and his wards, you must stay far from that mountain.” When Grimmjow opened his mouth to argue, Byakuya lifted one black-taloned hand. “I do not say this without merit. Indeed, I’d ask you to remain also. Set your wards to allow no creature other than yourself entry, and return here. You are my guest until this entire matter has been dealt with.” When Rangiku pouted and tossed her head, Byakuya actually gave her a very small bow. “As are the rest of you. The tengu estate is open to those who would wish it—provided you are each committed to dealing with this dragon clan threat.”

Rukia’s winged shawl shivered and flared slightly. “Nii-sama, are you saying…?”

Byakuya turned and stared up over his shoulder at the monstrous black wings pinned above the fireplace, where their lustrous feathers seemed to absorb more light than they reflected in their glossy sheen. Beneath them, the fireplace had long since devoured the corpse of Tousen Kaname, and it looked like it was hungry for more. When Byakuya turned back to face them, Ichigo was startled to see his blue-lined eyes had bled into solid black—as black as his mouth had become.

“I will not allow the Spirit Society to be destroyed by one dragon’s hubris.” Glaring down the barrel of the table to where Grimmjow stood in angry reproach, Byakuya stretched his wings to their full span. “The tengu will stand with the son of the earth.”

Grimmjow looked taken aback, his hackles slowly dropping by inches. Tilting his head a little, he squinted. “I want more feathers.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

And with that, the war council was formed.

* * *

“What a day,” Ichigo said tiredly. He was flat on his back in the grassy lawn under the wisteria tree, staring up into the purple and white branches. The air smelled sweet and the grass was soft, but he felt too worn out to enjoy it. “Who knew that much talking and arguing could be just as exhausting as an actual fight?”

“Just be grateful I’m even here,” Grimmjow said bluntly, hands laced over his punctured stomach. Sprawled beside Ichigo, he was glaring up at the same sight like it had personally wronged him. “Fucking tengu, telling me how to set my wards.”

“I’m just glad you made Hands get my bag out before you switched them over.”

“I didn’t switch them over.” Grimmjow didn’t look at him when Ichigo whipped his head around. “There’s nothing Aizen could do to make you betray me. Waste of time and energy.”

Ichigo swallowed a little. “Couldn’t figure out how to do it, huh.”

“Nope.”

There was a beat of silence, followed by the two of them snickering and slapping at each other like a couple of morons in the grass. Ichigo felt lighter and happier than he had since finding out Aizen existed in the Spirit Society. They had allies. They had a chance.

Grimmjow had a chance.

Not just to get his revenge, but to have a real life and a place there. People who knew him. Knew his name. Maybe even appreciated him for who he was. At the very least, Unohana and Ukitake were being friendly. And Rukia, who for some reason had taken it as a personal insult that Grimmjow didn’t want to be her best friend. Ichigo knew he should be feeling jealous about it on both ends, but he didn’t. He just felt good. Hopeful, even.

“Thanks for dragging me out here,” Grimmjow said after a thoughtful silence. “Whatever happens, I can at least say I tried to avenge them.” He turned and looked at Ichigo. “Still don’t like that fox fucker, though. He’s out for himself and nobody else.”

“He won’t do anything to endanger Rangiku-san, I don’t think.” Ichigo chewed his lip. “I don’t trust him either.”

“I don’t trust any of ‘em.”

“Yet,” Ichigo said, jabbing his ribs with an elbow. “Give them a chance. Just one. For me.”

“You think real big of yourself, human.” He didn’t sound angry, just worn out. It had been a really long day outside his cave hermit comfort zone, and it was only going to get worse. Ichigo reached over without looking and patted his metal crotch protector. “Is that tengu at least giving us rooms near each other? If he puts me in some fucking shanty up the back I’m gonna burn his house down.”

“You’ve got some real standards for someone who was telling me to piss in a bucket two days ago.”

“Shut up. I was kidding about that.”

“You fucking weren’t!” Ichigo cried, punching out. Grimmjow just knocked his fist away, kind of grinning about it. “Hypocrite. I hope Byakuya makes us sleep in the same little bed.” It was supposed to come out like a threat of some kind, but that was sort of hard to pull off when they’d actually done that ever since he’d arrived. “Or—I sleep on the bed. You sleep on the floor.”

“Soft little human needs his feather mattress?” Grimmjow teased, unfazed. “Maybe there’s some slender tengu servant around here who can massage your ass after you've been sitting on it all day.”

“What do I need one of those for? You’re right here.” A predictable tussle broke out after that with Grimmjow launching himself straight onto Ichigo, who faked vomiting up his tea and fruit slices until he could get enough leverage to roll back on top of him. Claws jabbed him in the ribs through his coat, going right for the worst spots. Ichigo pulled on a big chunk of blue hair. Sharp teeth bit him on the arm in retaliation. But best of all, Grimmjow was laughing like something was actually funny. No—like he was having fun.

With Ichigo.

“You’re a little asshole, you know that?” Grimmjow said when he finally had him pinned into the grass again, panting a little into Ichigo’s grass-stained cheek. He still smelled like campfire smoke, but it was fading. Maybe after a bath in Byakuya’s fancy bathhouse he’d smell like something totally different. “What’s that look for?”

“Nothing,” Ichigo lied. “Just wondering what you’re going to give Yachiru instead of your horn rings.”

“Was thinking a little push knife. Not hard to make,” Grimmjow replied before he could stop himself. They both froze; Ichigo in mean delight, Grimmjow in cornered denial. “Oh, fuck you.”

Laughing up at him as he tried to struggle away with cheeks flushed with embarrassment and irritation, Ichigo grabbed him around the neck and pulled him down with all his might. He smacked a loud, wet kiss right onto Grimmjow’s eye before he could talk himself out of it.

“You’re the best,” Ichigo told him as he let go, falling back into the grass. “Grouchy demon with a heart of gold. Ow!” He slapped away the claw that tried to stab him in the navel through his t-shirt. “Don’t make me piss myself.”

“Serve you right.” Grimmjow was wiping his eye with the back of his hand, looking disgusted. “Trying to suck my eye out?”

Ichigo screwed his nose up, rubbing absently at his stomach. “Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a planned kiss, but I wasn’t trying to blind you. Calm down.” A small, anxious flutter soured his stomach. He probably shouldn’t have done that. Grimmjow obviously hated it. Shit.

“A kiss? You sick fuck,” Grimmjow said, making a face. Ichigo’s buoyant mood nosedived. Sitting up in a hurry, he tugged his coat shut, keeping his head lowered while his mind raced for a way to laugh it off. But Grimmjow wasn’t finished. “Don’t do that shit in public! Those youkai are gonna think you’re some kind of pervert. You’re already associating with a demon; you can’t afford to make them think you’re some kind of depraved asshole as well. Use your brain, human.”

Ichigo blinked a few times, trying to make sense of what that all meant. “You’re worried about my _reputation?_” When Grimmjow scowled and pulled away, trying to get to his feet, Ichigo grabbed his arm. It had the opposite effect, dragging him up to stand on the grass instead. Under the veil of the wisteria, Grimmjow looked less like a gentleman concerned about Ichigo’s virtue and more like the bad-tempered cave demon he really was. So what…? “What do you mean, not in public? Can I do it in private? This is private.” He took a step forward but Grimmjow held him back, stabbing a finger upward. Ichigo lifted his head and saw about fifty ravens roosting in the branches overhead. “Were they always there? Jeez, I’m glad they didn’t shit on my face. Anyway—”

“No kissing!” Grimmjow hissed, planting his entire hand over Ichigo’s face. “Demons don’t even do that weird shit.”

“Why not?” Ichigo said, his tone wheedling behind the palm sealing his mouth. He shook his head free. “Don’t tell me you’re like those old-timey prudes who fuck through a hole in the sheet. Do you have a fuck sheet?”

“No!” Grimmjow snarled, looking deeply uncomfortable. And a little panicked. “There’s no fuck sheet!”

“I want to see your fuck sheet next time we’re back in the cave.”

Grimmjow went purple. “You shitty human, I’m gonna—”

“Gonna _not_ kiss me? Because you’re a fuck sheet prude who does it in the dark—” Ichigo couldn’t finish his sentence because at that exact moment, Grimmjow grabbed his face in two clawed hands and hauled his mouth up to crash into his.

It hurt. There was teeth hitting teeth. His lip almost busted. Ichigo was practically tip-toe and something in his neck yelped at the sudden angle. It was easily the most painful and least sexy kiss that he’d ever bullied out of someone. But it was also Grimmjow: big, lean, fur-pelt-and-magic-arm Grimmjow with horns and fangs, kissing him like he wanted to punish him.

So Ichigo opened his mouth, closed his eyes, and let him.

It only took a soft nuzzle of his lips against Grimmjow’s to change the entire dynamic. Almost immediately he returned the favour, mirroring him instinctively. Just as Ichigo was wondering if it was the first time Grimmjow had actually kissed anyone, he bit down on the tender corner of Ichigo’s lip and licked it. Blood pressure skyrocketed. Stars exploded. Ichigo made a weird little sound—and Grimmjow pulled away to stare at him.

“The fuck was that noise?”

“Hormones,” Ichigo said honestly. “Can you keep going? I almost had your tongue in my mouth, and I was kind of hoping to find out what it tastes like before we go inside.”

“Fucking—no! That was just to shut you up.” There was a red flush in Grimmjow’s cheeks that belied his words entirely. “Now I have your spit in my mouth. Hope you’re fuckin’ happy.”

“Yeah, actually.” That earned him a disbelieving head shake.

“We’re going in.” Stomping in the direction of the main house, Grimmjow got halfway across the lawn before he realised Ichigo hadn’t automatically followed him. So he came stomping back and grabbed his hand, tugging him along with annoyance and not a little bit of flustered bemusement. “Fucking humans.”

“I wish,” Ichigo replied, and Grimmjow finally lost his mind. Dropping his hand, he cursed loudly to the pretty purple sky and whistled Hands back into existence, where he grabbed one of its thumbs and was carried away across the trees by the ugliest magic carpet Ichigo had ever seen. He watched the spectacle play out with baffled wonder. “Holy shit. I didn’t know he could do that.”

Talk about a day of revelations. Pushing his hands into his pockets, Ichigo shrugged and headed the rest of the way into the house alone. Grimmjow would come back eventually, even if it was just for food and sleep.

Ichigo just hoped those ravens weren’t the chatty kind.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ["Hands" - an illustration](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24713800) by [PacificOuroboros](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PacificOuroboros/pseuds/PacificOuroboros)


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